Review of The Whale (2022) by Orchidc — 28 Jan 2023

Lights come up and we are all still sitting stunned. I am watching the credits through tears unable to move, overwhelmed in an ocean of emotion. I knew this would be my visceral reaction to Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale(2022) after only seeing the movie trailer.

I came to the movie theater to cry alone and while I was not alone, their was a good amount of people for a Tuesday night. I did indeed cry hard many times. The film opens with a long shot of a bus and a dying field.

It seems to be winter time. This sets a somber tone. The audience does not know it yet but that is a young man running away from his mistakes into the arms of the New Life church by the name of Thomas.

Cut to a Zoom class where we here the instructor’s voice but his square is blacked out. There is a dramatic transition from the Zoom class to title of film to our main character Charlie played phenomenally by Brendan Fraser.

He is a morbidly obese English professor which is why his Zoom screen was black. Making us immediately hyper aware that he knows he makes people uncomfortable. There is a jarring cut to him masturbating to gay porn but only barely.

Because he immediately has what seems like a slight heart attack, later we find out it is congestive heart failure. I really loved this shot which will be used in the film often. The camera pans from behind Charlie to in front and around him in a 360 motion.

As if to say there is a lot to take in here. The setting rarely changes throughout the whole film. We are mostly in Charlie’s slightly cluttered apartment. In a scene you can see some trash wedged under the cabinets.

Although we rarely leave the apartment plot wise the character dynamics keep the audience captivated. We are seeing this man’s life and struggles from his point of view of being a prisoner in his home and ultimately in his body.

Throughout the film I found myself asking why are you doing this to yourself? But then I would have to ask myself the same thing; we all can exhibit self-sabotaging behaviors sometimes. This is illustrated by the character Liz his nurse and best friend played by Hong Chau.

Who loves him and tries to help him as much as he allows himself to be helped. She also has a dark since of humor and is not afraid to call him out on his **** She says this line in the beginning that stuck out to me.

“Being in debt is better than being dead.” She is referring to him going to the hospital without insurance. It is sad that in American society this is what we must contend with when it comes to healthcare.

Throughout the film we see Charlie’s refusal to go. Almost as if he is resigned to dying. But before he goes which he struggles with internally he wants his teen daughter to know how special she is.

We learn that Ellie played by Sadie Sink his daughter hasn’t had contact with him much since she was eight and he left her to pursue a romantic relationship with a man. Obviously, this deeply pained her and she acts out throughout the film.

So much so that he has to bribe her to spend time with him. Everything Sadie does is to let the world know she is hurting. She has been this way for so long her mother thinks she is evil. Charlie feels such overwhelming guilt about that decision he takes any scraps of quality time with her.

We realize in the end how truly amazing he thinks she is. This is even after she drugged him. Between this and the death of his lover, Charlie just could not get through these hard emotions of loss and failure.

This is shown with a scene where he is gorging himself with copious amounts of food while an ominous orchestra music plays in the background. In one scene he says “Who would want me to be apart of their life.

” He is so disappointed with himself he can not see how sweet and tender he truly is. There is a bit of a religious element with several characters close proximity to the New Life Church. But the main characters don’t buy into the doctrine.

To me this film is not about God but about self and how we grapple with the decisions we make. I won’t ruin the end for you, but it is so moving. I will say I love how he ascends to his daughter’s words.

The very words he was so moved by. What he tried to teach his students to be honest to be vulnerable that is powerful writing. And that is what makes this film so moving. There is an honesty about our weaknesses.

How hard it is to face our mistakes and not let our disappointment in self get the best of us. If you are not crying hard by the end you have a heart made of stone or maybe this just isn’t the film for you.

But Darren Aronofsky I salute you as one of the best film makers in my lifetime. Who knows how to show the complexity of emotion we all experience in this life.