“The Whale” - My Thoughts 💭

“The Whale” - Dir. Darren Aronofsky

Brendan Fraser stars in the heartfelt “The Whale” - a tale of a morbidly obese English teacher aiming to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter. The film is based on the play by Samuel D. Hunter (who also wrote the screenplay) which I’d not heard of prior. The stage origins are not made secret as the film is entirely set in one home - essentially a chamber piece, yet I was never bored.

Initially, I had a slight reluctance to see the film. The lead performance from Brendan Fraser appeared overly hyped (it is, but it’s still a very good one), but as the film started I recognised I was in Aronofsky territory straightaway. The opening scene includes Charlie (Brendan Fraser) who tries to masturbate before gasping for breath and clutching his heart, while a young missionary from New Life suddenly enters from his unlocked front door warning of the coming Armageddon. Yes, this is certainly an Aronofsky film; it’s gritty, at times grotesque yet a humane character-driven piece from the director of such memorable films of the last 20 years: “Black Swan”, “The Wrestler” and perhaps his best “Requiem for a Dream”. “The Whale” fits into this same realm - in that type of heightened realism edging into the absurd or the uncanny.

The excellent supporting roles not only prop up Fraser’s Oscar nominated portrayal of Charlie, but are interesting in their own right. Brendan Fraser’s much lauded ‘return’ would be nothing without the amazing script and the performers surrounding him. The film has fine turns from Sadie Sink (Max from TV’s “Stranger Things”) as Charlie’s daughter Ellie, Ty Simpkins as Thomas the missionary, a terrific Oscar nominated performance by Hong Chau as Liz, Charlie’s nurse and friend, as well as Samantha Morton as his ex-wife Mary. “The Whale” is an arresting piece. By the end, it gave me a similar feeling of having seen a superlative play. The five core characters all have their entrances and exits, each with their moment to shine. The pace is peppy, the dialogue sometimes rapid fire, the interactions engaging with a push/pull of ideas, ideology and character motivations that is frequently blistering.

Each actor compliments the other well, as well as ‘comments’ on each other much like a good piece of theatre. I hope people embrace this dialogue and character-driven storytelling regardless of the film’s origins as a play. Aronofsky’s direction keeps proceedings tense, occasionally humorous and sometimes frightening with a tense soundtrack and a fantastical sequence of Charlie binge-eating two pizzas and then raiding the fridge. The director’s ongoing themes of addiction in some form, which run through many of his films, is no less powerful and gruelling in “The Whale”.

What might surprise audiences is just how much emotion is wrung out of this memorable film. It asks you not just to understand and sympathise with the characters, but to also look at your own life, your own faults and failures (and boy, do we love that!). Ones that maybe we have covered over much like in the film’s ongoing recital of a junior essay on “Moby Dick”. If you’ve seen the film, you will know what I’m referring to, but maybe we’re similarly just covering over everything, like Melville ‘banging’ on about the history of whaling so much in the novel, to spare people from our ‘own sad stories’. After all, that is what Charlie claims he is doing, eating until he is covered in weight and struggles to move, in his attempt to cover over one’s own heartache. Don’t get me wrong this is one person’s fictional story and surely doesn’t account for the experience of all people that are overweight or obese. Regardless, the examination of the film’s ideas of how better to lead our own lives through expressing truth and authenticity (something that Fraser’s Charlie purports to his own students in their English writing) that we can come to transcend our failures and faults, reconcile the past and finally be free!

I’m giving “The Whale” ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ out of five

You can also check out my recent review for “Fall” below as well as the trailer for “The Whale”: