The Whale's plea for honesty doesn't meet you halfway, but I'm okay with that
In Brendan Fraser's acting triumph, our broken selves are well reflected
🧧 spoilers indicated in the body of the review
WRITE SOMETHING HONEST!
The above statement is a plea from Charlie (Brendan Fraser) to his writing students in A24’s The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky now playing in theaters.
Well, okay then.
The Whale is 117 mins long and doesn’t feel its length. And if nothing else, I picked up some good tips: all the good grammar and structure in the world won’t save you if you don’t have something original to say.
Dear reader, I hope I pass this test with you.
I actually like The Whale. I stand behind this film and everything it is attempting to do. Of all the recent obvious Oscar-bait hopefuls, this one has genuine appeal to me. It entertained me and gave me pathos and humor. I enjoyed watching Brendan Fraser, as college writing instructor Charlie, do such a great job underneath all the prosthetics. He nails his character's physicality, breathing, and heart condition. Additionally, imbuing Charlie with that level of physical weight is an outstanding actor transformation. It demonstrates a high level of commitment and a great deal of personal sacrifice. It is exactly the type of physical transformation the Academy gobbles up in spades come awards season, i.e. now. In this instance, Fraser deserves every accolade coming his way. (Is anyone anywhere talking about The Eyes of Tammy Faye? Or able to take Tom Hanks seriously in Elvis?)
Fraser nails his character's physicality, breathing, and heart condition…demonstrating an outstanding actor transformation. Fraser deserves every accolade coming his way.
The story of The Whale concerns a morbidly obese young-to-middle-aged man named Charlie (Brendan Fraser) who teaches college writing classes over Zoom while keeping his camera off. Through the course of events, we learn he has been estranged from his now late-teen daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), since her childhood. He is looked after by his caregiver, Liz (Hong Chau), who’s become more of an enabler, allowing her emotional attachment to influence her actions. She is bossy and at times bullies Charlie. Her affection for him crosses professional boundaries when she nuzzles up against him. But who’s going to notice? And also, she has an excessively territorial stance against Bible huckster Thomas (Ty Simpkins), who is not all that he appears to be, seeking his own path to redemption. Things come to a head when we start to learn of Charlie's broken heart, his grief over the loss of his second partner, and the unresolved issues with his ex, Mary (Samantha Morton), and consequently the latter affecting his daughter as she deals with making it through high school well enough to qualify for college.
Despite this film thinking it's more profound than it is, I still give it kudos for dealing earnestly with an issue of overwhelming relevance: addiction. In this case, the desire to end emotional pain through slow suicide by indulging in over-eating to seek comfort and self-medicate. Watching The Whale, I found it difficult as an audience member to sit by when even his caregiver is his enabler. And the fact that NO ONE stages an intervention is perhaps the saddest part of the film.
More directly then, its bleak message is: no one is coming for you. Which is probably closer to the truth. But I couldn't tell if the film was saying this intentionally. Is Charlie culpable for his state of health and therefore deserves his abandonment? Or does society, with its fast food mainline to obesity, bear responsibility? And if indeed it has this mainline to disease, why doesn’t it care, or offer affordable resources to restore health?
The lack of clear thematic intention as to whether it’s society’s failure or Charlie’s personal responsibility that tacitly makes us feel he deserves his abandonment veers the film towards the fatalistic simply out of economic reality. Charlie’s assertion for not getting help is the financial ruin that using his medical insurance would bring. If we are to believe Charlie, that treatment is out of his reach financially, this would make society culpable.
It feels like a bigger statement that the film isn't overtly making, but rather presenting as a matter of fact, i.e. health care is not affordable. As in, well yeah, of course, Charlie's gonna die. He's too fat to live and it's his fault. It's his fault for not getting help. So fuck him. Let him die if he wants. There's nothing we can do except keep feeding him a party bucket of fried chicken and two large pizzas every day with candy bars for dessert. Sucks to be him. Yet we become aware of the economic destitution in his life, his family, and those around him. But the film won’t go the extra step of being culpable itself for highlighting the obvious realities beneath the surface which allow a person to take this path to premature death.
The film won’t go the extra step of being culpable itself for highlighting the obvious realities beneath the surface which allow a person to take this path to premature death.
🧧 SPOILERS AHEAD ON ENDING ELEMENTS
The fact that Charlie doesn’t find the will to live after repairing his relationship with his daughter, and instead doubles down on his (slow) suicide by purposely over-indulging, is no different than if he had put a gun to his head. The film, again, doesn’t want to address this fact. Instead, it keeps selling the notion that Charlie is making a choice and he’s welcome to it. Would we sit by so idly if instead of all the food in his fridge, his choice to numb the pain was another crack pipe hit or one more heroin needle to the arm?
In the last frames, the film tacks on a dissolve-to-white ending that suggests ascension into Heaven which is pure cliché. It also throws out the main arguments built up rather convincingly in the story regarding religion, God, and Hell, neither of which are of any use to Charlie. But suddenly, when he dies, he's going to his happy place: the sun-drenched sea shore of his supposed imagination with his ex and his daughter. That's pretty tacky. Who's to say he wouldn't rather be copulating with his dead lover?
🧧 END OF SPOILERS
The challenges of adapting a stage play for the screen are clearly visible in this film—especially when the playwright is also the author of the screenplay, as is the case here with Samuel D. Hunter. The heavy-handed structuring with symmetrical motifs which works so well on stage kills a sense of realism in film. Life is not so tidy. This is the element that most derails The Whale for me. It’s too predictable. And ultimately becomes overly sentimental.
Another bit of script work that would have been helpful is to have softened Ellie a few percentage points. She is so hell-bent on giving less than zero fucks about her shame-filled dad she comes across as a genuine sociopath. Sure it propels the story but it also stretches credibility. A child being so heartless to their parent, especially one with obvious mental and physical health issues simply over circumstantial abandonment, however justified, feels excessive and unreasonable.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously and there are plenty of places to laugh if you are so inclined.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously and there are plenty of places to laugh if you are so inclined. The movie allows a wink to its audience through Fraser's performance simply by taking an Eddie Murphy Dr. Dolittle [sic] track to present obesity through prosthetics. Employing a relatively fit actor to “play” obese, of course, not for comedy in this case, creates a distancing that allows humor through the crevices, as well as, giving us the license to watch idly by. Whereas, hiring an actual 400lb human may otherwise prove to be too shocking, or worse, distracting by making us feel more culpable. However, I confess to the need for a re-watch of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993, to test this assertion.
The Whale is a strong attempt at dealing with the difficult subject of addiction. It does so innovatively, with captivating cinematography in a confined space that compliments Fraser’s outstanding work as Charlie. It also doesn’t flinch away from showing the unvarnished realities of morbid obesity and its processes. In the end, Fraser’s performance allows the film’s grander themes to shine through. One such is that despite our vices, we strive for redemption by sacrificing ourselves for the ones we love.
3.5/5
The Whale is currently playing in theatres. It is directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, Noah, Mother!). He does a solid job with this stage adaptation and manages to stay out of his own way.
N.B. TRAILER SABOTAGE: This is a prime example of a film that was ruined by its trailer. Fraser's biggest moment is milked in the trailer under an orgy of pull quotes, effectively making it the stagiest moment in the movie.