Upcoming Film - "Unsinkable"

[Eric Paddon]

I always thought the story of the Inquiry with Senator Smith as a focal point character would make for a good drama to frame the story.

Unfortunately......this wasn't it. The laughable conceit of the female reporter who sneaks aboard the Carpathia to listen in on Smith's confrontation with Ismay and who later gets kicked in the face by J.P. Morgan AND who then becomes Smith's conduit for finding out about the Californian had me doing multiple face palms. And where the heck was Ernest Gill? If you don't give us the context of him appearing and the news about the Californian seeing rockets the whole criticism of the Californian makes no sense in the narrative.

 

[Kathy S]

I always thought the story of the Inquiry with Senator Smith as a focal point character would make for a good drama to frame the story.

Unfortunately......this wasn't it. The laughable conceit of the female reporter who sneaks aboard the Carpathia to listen in on Smith's confrontation with Ismay and who later gets kicked in the face by J.P. Morgan AND who then becomes Smith's conduit for finding out about the Californian had me doing multiple face palms. And where the heck was Ernest Gill? If you don't give us the context of him appearing and the news about the Californian seeing rockets the whole criticism of the Californian makes no sense in the narrative.

Darn. When I heard it focused on the Smith hearings I assumed it would be based on Wyn Craig Wade's book, which I loved, although I read it quite awhile (more than 20 years) ago.

I likely will stream it anyway given that—well, it focuses on Titanic—but have am holding my expectations in check.

 

[Eric Paddon]

I would definitely hold expectations back. The source material for this appears to have been a play, and in the limited staging of a play, it's somewhat understandable that you'd have a fictional character act as a convenient connecting figure on some points (this is one reason why I have much more positive impression of the 1997 Broadway musical) but in the more realistic medium of film, a larger level of accuracy IMO is necessary.