On Wednesday, I went to see Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World (warning: this website brought my computer to its knees… is Flash the culprit?), the first movie made using the Aubrey-Maturin characters from Patrick O’Brian. I read Master and Commander long before I started writing here; here are my notes on The Far Side of the World. Since the title derives from the first and the tenth in the 20-volume series, I was curious to see how the melange would come to life.
The movie’s plot pulls more from the tenth book, although I felt like various incidents were plucked from the intervening novels (but too hard for me to check). Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are clearly well acquainted in the film, and the naturalist instincts of Dr. Maturin are a known quantity amongst all HMS Surprise’s crew. I found the movie well done, but not compelling. With O’Brian, so often the anticipation of action or discussion of strategy demands more attention than any battle ever does. In that way, the books feel true to the pace of life. The movie did not ignore that in-between time, to the director’s credit. There are various interludes which, taken as a whole, probably fill the movie more than the three encounters with the French privateer which ostensibly drive the plot. The action, however bloody and true-to-life, is just more bang and crash. And bang and crash in this day and age is a losing measure… what does the 18th century have to counter Terminator, et al? That said, the personal details (an amputation of a young teen officer’s arm, the sewing of sailcloth around corpses, and the like) did bring the brutish nature of the time and the Royal Navy more to life than anything else.
I hope the movie does well at the box office, enough so that another installment is forthcoming. The ending left all possibilities open, of course. I didn’t love the movie, but I’m glad someone is trying.