The quality of The Mercy is a bit of a strain

The notion of a lone protagonist against the implacable force of nature generally makes for a compelling narrative. There are some great recent examples with The Martian (2015), All is Lost (2013), and Gravity (2013). If you go a little further back there is Cast Away (2000) or I Am Legend (2007) – not to mention The Omega Man (1971) – and further back still you have The Old Man and the Sea (1958).

It’s a winning formula. The conflict is clear and well-established and, in most cases, it is director-proof. You can go one of two ways; you can have the protagonist narrate their way through the film as in Cast Away or The Martian or – trickier but more satisfying – you can have the character get on with it in silence as in All is Lost.

Unfortunately if you hedge your bets, as James Marsh does in The Mercy then you are in big trouble.

The Mercy is the true story of Donald Crowhurst (Colin Firth), a weekend sailor who tried to sail single-handed round the world in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968. Crowhurst captured the imagination of the nation as he and his pioneering boat the Teignmouth Electron appeared to be on course to set new records.  Stories were fed to the media in this pre-internet age by a weaselly journalist turned PR man (David Thewlis) while Crowhurst’s anxious wife (Rachel Weisz) and doting children waited at home.

It would be unfair to reveal what happens but you can assume that it doesn’t turn out well; stories of smooth sailing rarely make good movies. The fact that I don’t think this is a good movie however  has little to do with Crowhurst’s travails and everything to do with how they are presented.

The story should be meat and drink to director Marsh, an Oscar-winning documentary maker, but, for me, it just didn’t land.

To begin with we have no idea who Crowhurst is. He could be a fool or a rogue, or even a dreamer, but the film doesn’t take a point of view. We get that Crowhurst wants to be famous and we get that he is a little bit of a Walter Mitty, but there is no underlying motive for his actions other than to promote some satnav precursor whose merits are never really fully explained.

Crowhurst should be clutching at straws, there should be some hint of desperation, but instead he rather sleepwalks deeper and deeper into trouble. Without any clear motive we are left with little to hold on to except Firth’s performance. There’s an issue here too.

Donald Crowhurst is not a Colin Firth character. Firth is a fine actor but he doesn’t do mavericks, he does stoic dependability and that’s not what this character needs. I appreciate that Firth brings the money with him but he is also exactly twenty years older than Crowhurst and it shows. He's an honest actor who tries hard but he is miscast.

Rachel Weisz is similarly ill-served by a part that requires her to be little more than a middle class housewife who is endlessly supportive of her foolhardy husband. I get that Clare Crowhurst loved her husband but this film has her being supportive to the point of negligence; if ever a man needed an intervention it was Donald Crowhurst.

With two big stars there is also an issue about whose film it is. Once we are out at sea and things go a bit Pete Tong, Firth should be the focus of our attention like Robert Redford in All is Lost or Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Instead he is presented in a series of lonely mariner clichés while we cut back and forth to Weisz fretting stoically. To be honest my focus was so split that I ended up not really caring about either of them.

Narratively the film is something of a disappointment and visually I found it curiously flat and unimpressive. All things considered, like the race at the heart of the story, The Mercy is a bit of an endurance event for all concerned.