CREDIT: A24
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Samantha Morton
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Running Time: 117 Minutes
Rating: R for Profanity Borne of Anger and Frustration
Release Date: December 9, 2022 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Charlie (Brendan Fraser) spends all of his days sitting on his couch, teaching an online English class and ordering delivery. Hardly anyone ever sees him, including his students, as he keeps his laptop camera disabled. He tells them it’s broken, but really, he just doesn’t want to have to deal with their reactions to the fact that he weighs 600 pounds. This may just be the last week of his life, as he’s enduring congestive heart failure and refusing to go to a hospital. So instead he’s looked after by his no-nonsense friend Liz (Hong Chau), who’s also a nurse. They’re occasionally interrupted by door-to-door missionary Thomas (Ty Simpkins), who becomes obsessed with counseling Charlie through what he believes is the impending apocalypse. And in the meantime, Charlie also does his damnedest to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, the disaffected and manipulative Ellie (Sadie Sink).
What Made an Impression?: I’m really not quite sure how to react to The Whale. And I’m not even talking about the controversy that tends to always surround fat suit prosthetics. As far as I can tell, the physical demands of playing someone this big actually demand an actor who’s fit and hardy. So if you are going to make a movie with a character who weighs as much as Charlie, the only way to do it is with someone who doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much as he does. This is all to say: I certainly get the criticism around this sort of casting, but I also understand why it was made the way it was made.
But that doesn’t mean I understand everything about this movie. It’s based on a play by the film’s screenwriter, Samuel D. Hunter, and that theatrical pedigree is present every which way. The action is limited to one location, and the emotion is delivered all the way to Pluto. That overwrought style can be fine, you just have to convince the audience to buy into it. And on that point of whether or not I’m convinced? I’m confounded.
Charlie is a supremely frustrating character. He likes to see the good in everybody, especially Ellie, who he insists is just wonderful, despite pretty much all evidence to the contrary. Part of that is just what a long-absent dad would typically say when trying to reconnect to his kid. But at a certain point, you think he ought to admit that she’s not exactly what we call friendly. To anybody. At all. He does value honesty above just about everything else, though, even when it’s brutal. But to that point, we viewers might want him to confront the brutality in his own life, particularly the loss of a boyfriend that led to his reclusiveness and disordered eating. Fraser undoubtedly gives it all, as he wrings just about every note he can out of what he’s asked to do. But while I recognized the ambition, I was also left ultimately responding, “Well, gee… Hmm.”
The Whale is Recommended If You Like: Distorted optimism
Grade: 3 out of 5 Moby Dicks
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