A24
It’s an odd thing, to be a fan of Darren Aronofsky the filmmaker — to me he stands out by simply trying the audacious more often than most, and somehow frequently pulling it off. Yet even his most accessible movies (meaning The Wrestler and Black Swan) dive into some very heavy areas, and both play with ambiguous endings and problematic parent-child relationships. Noah wasn’t so ambiguous but it’s hard to argue the other theme was there, and mother! was more about problematic romantic relationships (both were environmentally tinged though).
The Whale is the latest from Aronofsky, but only one of three he didn’t write (the others being The Wrestler and Black Swan — maybe that’s why it feels more in the ‘real’ world) but this one was written by the playwright who wrote the play the movie is based on, Samuel D. Hunter. But because of its origin as a play, we don’t really get much of the interesting, often psychedelic or emotionally complex directing Aronofsky has used before. More simple shots, more basic, more simple from an emotional perspective.
The movie stars Brendan Fraser as Charlie (in what has been called his comeback performance, although true fans know he already ‘came back’ in the great Doom Patrol show), an English professor who only teaches over the Internet with his camera off because he is morbidly overweight. That ‘morbid’ is no arch qualifier, as his health is severely failing — his only consistent help is his nurse and friend Liz (Hong Chau), who chastises his poor eating habits and urges him to go to the hospital while enabling his poor behavior still.
We eventually learn the causes behind all of these things and the sad connection the two share, but the movie is really only concerned with the scenes of a few days. A missionary happens to visit Charlie and begins to become invested in ‘saving’ him, much to the chagrin of Liz and amusement of Charlie. Otherwise the only one he really wants to see is his very estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), a teenager who was abandoned by her father a decade earlier.
Suddenly Charlie is reaching out and Ellie visits him against her own best feelings on it — she is understandably angry, but her father is desperate to reconnect, going to extremes to try anything, knowing that his time is limited. And all throughout the movie, Charlie keeps reading an old essay from a student about ‘Moby Dick’, something that calms him and gives him comfort.
This is a movie that uses Charlie’s weight as a trick — the theme of the whale from Moby Dick is far more relevant than a mean joke about his weight. His weight is a self-inflicted punishment and a world of cruelty toward those with those sort of weight problems. Brendan Fraser utilizes a fat suit in the movie, and there are those that criticized such an approach, wanting the movie to hire an overweight actor instead — and still others criticize the movie for being fatphobic.
I don’t really see it that way, but I can understand how someone might — for me the movie didn’t really come together until the end, but the ending really blew me away. The performances from the cast are all excellent, with great supporting acting from Hong Chau and Sadie Sink as people in pain and in anger, while Brendan Fraser is well praised for his emotional, deeply sad performance as a man who’s hurt and hurting.
Sadly I can’t really recommend this movie widely, as it really is a melodramatic piece that aims to hurt you. It’s not as weird as Aronofsky often gets, and I could’ve stood for it to be weirder. I think some of the themes (originating from the play) aren’t as deep as the writer seems to think they are. But it’s also hard to argue with the fantastic performances here — it might be a good enough reason to watch a movie that makes you uncomfortable simply because you’re watching one of the great modern acting performances.
The Whale has a run time of 1 hour 57 minutes and is rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content.
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