# The North Water (2021)

> A disgraced ex-army surgeon with a morphine habit joins an Arctic whaling voyage and finds himself trapped with a brutal killer.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/73850

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 5
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, mystery, history
- Created by: Andrew Haigh
- Network: AMC+
- Cast: Jack O'Connell, Colin Farrell, Kieran Urquhart, Roland Møller, Philip Hill-Pearson, Gary Lamont, Gerry Lynch, Kris Hitchen
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7660970/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: brutal
- Tone: bleak, claustrophobic, paranoid, brooding, harrowing

## What critics say

Viewers broadly find the miniseries a bleak, claustrophobic period survival drama powered by Colin Farrell's unsettling turn as Henry Drax and Jack O'Connell's haunted performance as Patrick Sumner.

## Synopsis

The North Water (2021) is a British-American co-produced limited series created by Andrew Haigh for AMC and AMC+. Jack O'Connell plays Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former army surgeon wrestling with morphine addiction, who signs on as ship's doctor for a nineteenth century Arctic whaling expedition to escape his past. Aboard the vessel he meets Colin Farrell's Henry Drax, a harpooner whose brutal amorality has been hardened by the harshness of his world. Sumner wants redemption, but the voyage turns into a harsh struggle for survival in a frozen wasteland, where every alliance and secret is tested by the cold and by Drax's violence. Across five fifty-minute episodes the story builds steadily within the cramped decks and corridors of a creaky ship, using flashback to reveal the history that drives both men. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, paranoid and bleak, with a sense of impending doom that viewers compare to the grip of withdrawal. Its prestige period mood and moral unease place it alongside The Terror and the psychological intensity of Hannibal for fans of grim, character-driven historical drama.

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