It’s been over a century since the RMS Titanic disaster, and while all manner of catastrophes have happened since, somehow this one haunts the imagination of storytellers and historians. You could blame James Cameron for making the blockbuster Titanic in 1997, but clearly that film was a symptom not a cause. Maybe it’s the scale of tragedy, the huge numbers of dead, or the adjacent fact that so many of them died senselessly because there weren’t enough lifeboats and the upper-class passengers were packed on to what boats there were before the tired, huddled masses travelling below deck could even get close.
Made on a limited budget that probably wouldn’t have covered the cost of supplying the crew with biscuits for Cameron’s epic, this dramatised feature tries to explore what was so significant, shocking and singular about the disaster. Instead of centring the action on the ship, Unsinkable revolves around a government inquiry hastily set in motion afterwards to find out if this was a simple act of God or the product of human error. Senator William Alden Smith (Cotter Smith) chairs the inquiry, calling on various crew members and survivors to testify. Some of the dialogue, adapted from the stage play Titanic to All Ships by Eileen Enwright Hodgetts on which this is based, sounds as if it was lifted straight from the congressional record, which is curiously pleasing to the ear and adds a tang of authenticity.
Elsewhere, a journalist named Alaine Richard (Fiona Dourif) digs into the story on her own, her path eventually crossing with Senator Smith, who occasionally pauses to talk to his wife, played by the great and all-too-rarely seen Karen Allen. There are flashbacks to what happened on the fateful night in question, and the film-makers must have been grateful that the tragedy happened in the dark because it covers up the fact that it looks like the lifeboats are being lowered into a swimming pool while a giant cutout ship capsizes in the background.
• Unsinkable: Titanic Untold is in UK and US cinemas from 12 April
