The Whale

The Whale has been a largely polarizing movie for critics and audiences.  Some have praised it and called it brave, particularly for the lead performance from Brendan Fraser, which is easily a career best, while others have called it a grotesque spectacle that revels in stereotypes of the obese.  Having just seen the film, I honestly don't understand what those who criticize the film are getting at.  I found this moving, involving from the first frame to the last, and tremendously heartbreaking.

The film is an adaptation of a stage play by Samuel D. Hunter, who also provides the screenplay here.  And even though the film never really leaves the apartment of the main character (aside from a few exterior shots now and then), it doesn't feel claustrophobic or overly staged.  Director Darren Aronofsky has given us one of his most powerful films, and when you consider this is the guy who did Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler, that's saying something.  This is a story of a man who truly believes that people are amazing, and uses his optimism of humanity to combat his addictions that are slowly killing him.  He has to be optimistic, because he has so little in his own life.  If he didn't believe in others, he would probably be in a worse state than we already find him.

And to those who call this movie exploitative, I have to wonder what movie they saw.  The lead character of Charlie is played by Fraser under a fat suit and tons of make up to make him appear as a 600 pound man at the end of his life.  Some have accused Aronofsky of fat-shaming, or playing only in stereotypes, but I never saw Charlie as anything more than a tortured soul who is desperately clinging to what little hope he has.  He is disgusted with himself and what he has become, he is miserable, and he is a broken man.  And yet, I never pitied him, because Fraser is so complex and involving here.  He's not just hiding behind a lot of make up, he's giving a genuinely devastating performance.  He shows us Charlie as a man, not just as an effect.  It's one of those rare performances that transcends acting, and becomes truly believable.  It's a wondrous feat of acting, and the film is pretty marvelous as well in my eyes.

Fraser is not just hiding behind make up, but has eyes that seem to be pleading in nearly every scene.  Whether it's for help, or for someone to look at him without disgust or contempt, he constantly has a look of sadness that is the deepest and most thorough I have seen on film in a while.  With his thinning hair and near-permanent sweat stains on his clothes, his Charlie has pretty much become glued to his couch where he teaches a college writing course on line.  He never lets his students see him, saying his camera is broken, and so they only hear his voice.  When he's not doing his job, he often binge eats.  Every night, the delivery boy drops off two large pizzas for him on his doorstep.  They develop a sort of friendship through the door, as they never see each other.  Charlie leaves the money in his mailbox, and waits until the kid is gone before he opens the door to take the food left behind on the bench by his door.

The film covers one specific week in Charlie's life where various people from the outside world become involved with him.  These include his caregiver Liz (Hong Chau from The Menu) who seems constantly torn between berating him for his self-indulgent eating and enabling it, a young man named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who is a traveling Christian Missionary who gets wrapped up in Charlie's life and becomes determined to save him, and Charlie's teenage daughter from a previous marriage, Ellie (Sadie Sink), who seems to have a permanent chip on her shoulder toward her father and everyone else who walks into her life.  She wrote her father out of her life a long time ago, but he is so desperate to spend time with her this week that he offers to pay her everything he has if she will just spend time with him.

It's through these various visits that the plot is revealed to us.  We learn of Charlie's previous marriage and why he left in the first place, we learn that the young man who visits him may not entirely be what he seems, and we learn why Liz just does not take Charlie to the hospital, despite the fact his heart is in danger of failing him.  All the while, The Whale makes Charlie into an enormously flawed yet sympathetic character.  I did not sense the hatred for him that some claim the film has.  Yes, the movie is very hard to watch, but so are a lot of other great movies.  This is not a movie you watch to "enjoy".  You watch this for the amazing performances, and for some very personal and powerful insights into the lives of the characters.  The movie has a quiet and haunting tone that simply mesmerized me.  It never once talks down to the audience, and I never felt like it was making me hate Charlie.  It puts his demons and addictions on display, but it never sneers at them.

Beyond Fraser's performance, this is also one of the best acted films I've seen in a while.  The entire small cast is note perfect.  Yes, with its limited setting and number of characters, its origins as a stage play are transparent, yet it never bothered me here like it sometimes does.  Aronofsky's visual style and the performances are more than enough to make the emotions in this piece larger than life.  It's rare for a film to grip me this strongly emotionally, but it's always a wonderful experience when one does.  When you see as many movies as I do, you start to notice how few of them actually leave any sort of impact.  Here, from the first second to the start of the end credits, I was feeling something, and it was certainly not disgust or hatred as others have claimed.  

The Whale holds not just some of the best performances of 2022, but it's one of its very best films as well in my opinion.  Fraser has always been able to excel in both blockbuster entertainment and dramatic work, but here he goes beyond anything I've seen him do.  He's amazing, his co-stars are amazing, and so is just the movie itself in every way.

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