Director: Darren Aronofsky
Writer: Samuel D. Hunter
Stars: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau
Synopsis: A reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.
If you could describe the films of Darren Aronofsky in two words, it would be polarizing and agonistic, in a good way. His features have a rough and self-destructive demeanor that makes it a harrowing experience but primarily worth it once it reaches its climax. This somewhat belligerent behavior creates an atmosphere of sheer tension, no matter the theme being tackled. You get the sensation that his films are reaching the end once it all comes crashing down for the main character, a cataclysmic ending that stays on your mind for a long time. However, he doesn’t stick with the same shticks or techniques. One way or another, Aronofsky finds ways to reinvent himself, whether it is a parable of the bible and mother earth or the tales of broken humans trying to reach their goal, no matter the cost. Although he has received critical acclaim and various nods from the awards circuit, primarily in his dramatic ventures, Aronofsky has had his array of pans from critics, like The Fountain, Noah, and mother! – the latter doesn’t deserve such hate, as I think it is his best feature to date.
Six years have passed since delivering his best work, and now Darren Aronofsky is back with a film that feels different from the rest of his filmography; a more restrained and less aggressive piece of work than his other features. Of course, it still contains the sensations of despair, paranoia, and self-destruction that we are used to seeing from the acclaimed director. Still, this time around, it is a more theatrical experience than a cinematic voyage – a choice that hurts the overall project. The reason is because his latest is an adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s 2012 stage play, “The Whale”. This movie marks not only the return of Aronofsky to the big screen but is also being recognized as Brendan Fraser’s comeback, and everyone is ecstatic for him (the movement is named the Brendanaissance). If one director could concoct a project that would be a challenge worth taking for Fraser to show us his acting chops, it would be Aronofsky, as he did in the past with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler – which should have won him an Oscar. However, unlike the aforementioned film, The Whale feels lacking and poorly translated onto the big screen from its stage play origins.
The Whale, as a whole, is not the total riveting success that plenty of people expect it to be, but it does demonstrate Fraser’s acting capabilities. And it is evident since his performance is the backbone of this project. Unfortunately, it can’t elevate the derivative aspects that its director orchestrates. Fraser plays Charlie, an English teacher running an online college study course via Zoom. There’s darkness amidst his subtle voice filled with empathy. He is mourning the death of his departed lover, whom he left his wife and young daughter for, by slowly eating himself to death. He’s stricken with guilt, indulging in excessive amounts of food to fill the gap in his broken heart, which, for him, seems unrepairable by the point that we see him. Although inconsolable to the point of self-destruction, Charlie is gentle with the people in his life. He sees the light in people, hence trying to help people in the ways he can, in the closedness of his claustrophobic apartment. As Fraser often described his character: “his superpower is to see the good in people”.
The Whale begins by presenting a form of darkness, as Charlie doesn’t want to show his face to the class by stating that his camera doesn’t work – creating a blank for his visage. As soon as the course ends, we get our first glimpse; the first view of Charlie is of him masturbating, which causes a heart attack that almost kills him. His only friend, Liz (the consistently excellent Hong Chau, who delivers acute fierceness to balance out Charlie’s self-disdaining yet caring demeanor), points out that he has incredibly high blood pressure and should go to the hospital. Instead, Charlie refuses, creating this anguish of misery and self-disgust that is hard for the audience to watch, especially in the scenes in which he eats large amounts of food (fried chicken, take-out pizza, candy). Other than Liz, who both share a tragic connection, there is a trio of characters in his life: his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton, who kills her brief scene – the best in the film by a mile wide), his daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), and a young missionary named Thomas (Ty Simpkins).
Death is looming, but there’s no specific time frame for when it will arrive. So, before he passes, Charlie wants to reconcile with his daughter sooner rather than later. This creates dynamic scenarios which balance an array of emotions. On the one hand, the aggressive bashing that Ellie delivers toward her father comes so that she can express her inner pains of abandonment and the emotional unavailability of her mother. Conversely, Charlie counter-balances with gentleness and understanding because he regrets the choices he made in the past. If something can hold Charlie’s heart together, it would be the faith in his daughter to change her ways. He sees the good in people, even in his state of self-disgust. Although these characters hold their hearts together by the thinnest cover, The Whale is a story about a man providing the tools so that they can be saved, even if he is in a worse situation. Charlie is the vessel to help the people in his life get a chance at redemption.
He knows that he is on his last leg; body and soul are separated. Yet, Charlie remains optimistic that his words might impact Liz, Ellie, or Mary to the point of personal metamorphosis, not forgiveness. This is a more dialogue-driven feature from Aronofsky, centering on broader, albeit thematically narrow, conversational set-pieces. It doesn’t contain his chaotically stylistic sequences since he has chosen a more closed-down approach to filmmaking. The main problems with The Whale don’t come from this stylistic departure. The issues arise from the fact that outside of Brendan Fraser’s performance (and two supporting players, Chau and Morton), which is tremendous (no other words can describe this transformative portrayal), there’s nothing else to be in awe or impressed about; even Matthew Libatique’s cinematography leaves a bit more to be desired. At least Brendan Fraser delivers. In scenes of self-loathing, you just can’t escape the fact that Fraser plays Charlie in the other parts of the feature, full of soul and belief in others. Much like The Wrestler was a redemption arc for Mickey Rourke, this is clearly the comeback tour for Fraser, and he deserves much love and praise for his excellent work here and his entire career.
Even the weakest Aronofsky features have uniqueness and creativity in their showcasing. In The Whale, he decides to contain his creativity visually and aesthetically, to pursue a melodramatic pulse. Forget the overly-edited psychedelic montages of Requiem for a Dream, the cataclysmic approach to mother!, or the disorienting nature of his debut feature, Pi. Instead, there’s claustrophobia galore but shot in a way that isn’t narratively pleasing. The single location The Whale is set in doesn’t allow much space for inventiveness; its translation from stage to the big screen falters because no cinematic tricks are being pulled, and most of its lines aren’t rendered as well as writer Samuel D. Hunter might have thought it would. This is unlike Florian Zeller’s The Father, which played with the production design, costumes, and editing to make us feel like we were inside the head of its lead character. There’s no outside world. People just come and go in Charlie’s apartment, which isn’t a bad thing. The issue comes from the fact that they are only declaring wants and needs repeatedly, feeling unrealistic and non-humanistic. The Whale tackles the pet themes of Aronofsky with his usual small amount of “shock factor”.
Still, one wishes that he would expand them further since this is almost exactly like The Wrestler, but with a narrower complexity in its narrative presentation. The backgrounds of every single character are revealed in a messy way that takes you out of the potential melancholic rollercoaster because you start thinking about the winding plot. Like its cinematographic frame, everything feels cramped, both thematically and narratively. If one thing could preserve it, it would be the performances; they are the key, not the salvation. The rest needs to work in order to be a total success. Aronofsky faces an unpredictable twist of bland and lacking character portrayals. The actors helming those roles are the ones doing the heavy lifting (with no help of the screenplay or direction), which rarely happens in the projects he’s involved in. It is intellectual to a fault and lacks the visceral strengths that Aronofsky offers in his previous features. There are horrific scenes and others that break your heart, but it doesn’t lead to much in the grand scheme of things. It is a person’s journey to sheer cataclysm and obliteration with a beating heart in Fraser, which somewhat helps elevate the lackluster elements in the film’s infrastructure. I just wished that the film overall was as strong as Brendan Fraser’s acting comeback.
