THE WHALE (2022)
a review by Evan Landon
When we discuss films, it is usually easier discussing ones that a lot of people have seen or are continuously mocked, so a lot of reviewers go for those kind of flicks as clickbait. They are “flickbait” and I am coining that term right now!
I immediately wanted to see this movie because it had three points that set it off for me: 1) It is an A24 movie, and yeah, I am an admittedly huge fan of their movies, 2) It is a Darren Aronofsky film, who is very polarizing as a filmmaker. I think I like as many of his films as I dislike, so there is my connection/disconnect, and 3) It is a grand return to his old leading man days for Brendan Fraser that I do not think anybody was expecting. He ended up winning a bunch awards for it too, which means fuck all to me, but you could see it meant a lot to him.
Written by Samuel D. Hunter as a stage play in 2012, Aronofsky had tried to get the movie made for a decade until he found the perfect actor to play “Charlie”. Since the original play was set in 2009, Aronofsky wanted it to seem like a seismic shift in our culture, so it takes place before the pandemic around 2016. I am not sure if that setting would have changed the aspect he would of wanted, but the end product is nothing short of seismic. Maybe he thought it would take away from the concentration of the story itself, but that I do not know.
In case you have no idea what the story is about, a morbidly obese teacher in Idaho's life is rapidly coming to a close, so he tries his bestest to redeem his past actions with the daughter he abandoned 8-years-before. She is not quite accepting of his apologies, to say the least. His nurse is the only person he sees frequently, aside from a missionary who gives a great subplot that involves his theological beliefs. His ex-wife comes by to see him after she realizes the only reason he was able to get his daughter over there was because he promised to give her the inheritance he had built up. The reason he was not in their lives anymore is he left them for another man who passed away from suicide via the local religious sect's judgment of his sexual preference, which in turn was the cause of Charlie's overeating.
There is a strong theme of depression, abandonment, spiritualism, and redemption that truly makes this story enthralling enough to watch, even if the movie itself can be difficult to watch. When he eats to find whatevs he considers comfort, it truly did remind me of all those Mukbang videos that completely took over social media during the pandemic crisis, but this was written way before that craze was even a thought.
This one left me spellbound, as it did many others with all of the awards and what not, making $57.6 million against a $3 million budget. It probably would have made a lot more, but it was released during a time where nobody was really going to the theater. What is good is that you can now catch it along with others over streaming platforms.
It did drive me crazy how much his dialogue is apologies, but it is offset by the other character's dialogue and performances. That is my only gripe, but it does add to his character because there are so many insufferable people just like that.
4.5 out of 5