‘Nantucket!” wrote Herman Melville in his 1851 novel Moby-Dick. “Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies …[an] elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.”

But this pretty New England island was itself a powerful background, as the opener to Melville’s Great American Novel. And beneath that soaring work of fiction was an even more outlandish tale: the tragedy, in 1820, of the whale ship Essex.

The events behind Moby-Dick will emerge from the mists of history later this month, with the release of In the Heart of the Sea, by Oscar-winning director Ron Howard. Based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s best-selling non-fiction book of the same name, it tells the story of the Essex and its Nantucket-based crew, who were shipwrecked after an attack by an enraged white sperm whale. And with the “elbow of sand” finding itself centre stage, it is gearing up for a fresh wave of tourism.

A scene from In the Heart of the Sea. Photograph: Warner Bros/AP

“There’s something special about Nantucket,” says Howard, who first holidayed on the island 30 years ago and has returned to promote the film. “It was at the heart of the whaling industry in the early 19th century, and bred this incredible brotherhood of seafarers. They were like astronauts: going further and deeper than any man had gone before.”

It was deep in the then-uncharted reaches of the Pacific Ocean in November 1820 that disaster befell the Essex, in the form of a 26-metre bull sperm whale that rammed the ship’s bow, sinking it and leaving the 20 survivors to a 96-day voyage across open ocean in three small boats. Just eight of them lived to see Nantucket again: they survived partly by eating the corpses of their dead shipmates.

In Nantucket’s Whaling Museum, the skeleton of a sperm whale hangs from the wave-shaped ceiling, its massive head and jaw tilting downward as if it has just dived beneath the surface. At 14 metres long it looks colossal – but it’s barely half the length of the “white demon” that scuppered the Essex.

There are no franchise stores in Nantucket Town centre. Photograph: Guido Cozzi/Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis

The museum – which recently had an $11m facelift – also has an exhibition (until November 2016) about the Essex, entitled Stove By a Whale: 20 men, 3 Boats, 96 Days. The tale is told through the diaries and possessions of the crew, enhanced by interactive technology. Visitors can learn how the sailors beat seasickness (swallow a lump of salted pork on a piece of string, yank it out, repeat) and see costumes worn by their Hollywood counterparts, including Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson.

Essex fever is already gripping the island, which is just 3½ miles wide by 14 miles long and about 30 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On a bright Sunday morning, I join an In The Heart of The Sea walking tour of the island’s one town, also called Nantucket. The 90-minute stroll touches on everything from Herman Melville’s stay in the mid 19th-century (at the Jared Coffin House) to Howard’s first fact-finding mission (he stayed at the luxurious White Elephant hotel, with its dramatic harbour views).

The whale skeleton in Nantucket’s Whaling Museum. Photograph: Blaine Harrington III/Corbis

The group (mostly weekending New Yorkers), twists through Nantucket’s cobbled streets, passing mom-and-pop stores and the Nantucket Pharmacy, where you can sit on a stool and order a tall ice-cream float as if it’s still the 1950s. We stop at key Essex sites, including the former homes of the ship’s ill-fated captain, George Pollard Jr, and fearless first mate Owen Chase, played in the film by Chris Hemsworth.

The mansions and cobbles remain, but otherwise Nantucket is very different from the seafaring metropolis brought to life in the film. The blood and blubber that caked the streets (sailors used to say you could smell Nantucket before you saw it) have been replaced by boutiques, cocktail bars and five-star hotels. The joke is that millionaires here make ends meet by mowing lawns for billionaires.

But despite its reputation as a glitterati bolthole, Nantucket still feels a world apart from the rest of the US, whether you arrive by the fast ferry from Hyannis or a “puddle jumper” eight-seater plane from New York or Boston. This, as Ralph Waldo Emerson called it, is the “Nation of Nantucket”.

Director of In the Heart of the Sea Ron Howard, says ‘I’m not that crazy about the ocean, but there’s something about this place …’ Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Warner Bros

For starters, there are no Starbucks, McDonald’s or Apple stores to be seen: franchises are banned – even for Tommy Hilfiger, who has a summer home here. The island has an unofficial dress code: you can usually spot a pair of “Nantucket Reds” – cherry-coloured trousers or shorts – wherever you go. It has its own slang too: as Philbrick lists in his book, off-islanders are “coofs”, an aimless stroll is a “rantum scoot”, and fancy victuals are “manavelins”.

There are plenty of manavelins to be had on the island today. Highlights include Topper’s seafood restaurant at the Wauwinet Hotel, and Brotherhood of Thieves, a more informal gastropub in Nantucket Town, where locals swear by the Big Ack (a crab burger stacked with parmesan and bacon).

The one thing that does divide the Nation of Nantucket is its beaches. The island has 80 miles of pristine shoreline, and every local has their favourite beach, ranging from calm Jetties Beach on the northern tip to wild sunsets at Madaket and throbbing surf at Nobadeer in the south (nicknamed “Brobadeer” for its party scene in summer).

The word Nantucket means “faraway land” in the language of the Wampanoag, the island’s native inhabitants. And it’s this sense of calm otherworldliness, just over the horizon from New York and Boston, that keeps people coming back. They come for the food, they come for the beaches, and now they’ll be coming for a slice of Hollywood sparkle too.

Howard sums it up nicely: “I’m not really a fun-in-the-sun person, being so fair-haired and light-skinned. And I’m not that crazy about the ocean either. But there’s something about this place: a kind of magnetism that you just want to share with people.”

And now Hollywood has rolled up its sleeves, a whole lot more people will be paying attention to this little elbow of sand in the heart of the sea.

• Flights were provided by Brand USA (VisitTheUSA.com). British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines fly direct from Heathrow to Boston. Accommodation was provided by the White Elephant Hotel (doubles from £150 room-only, whiteelephanthotel.com). More information from nantucketislandresorts.com and discovernewengland.org

In The Heart of the Sea is released in the UK on 26 December