Director: Brian Duffield
Writers: Brian Duffield, Daniel Kraus
Stars: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue
Synopsis: Follows a scuba diver who, while looking for his father’s remains, is swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale and has just one hour to get out before his oxygen runs out.
Whalefall is about the convergence of grief and how it consumes you as well as the story of a young man fighting to survive after being literally consumed. It’s a decent metaphor, but it doesn’t necessarily land. Director Brian Duffield has a nice streak of these gory films that have a deeper heart within them. And while the ones I have seen from him never punch above the ‘yeah, that was fine’ sentiment, I’m sad to report that Whalefall also lumps itself into that. Little character to draw from, a decent metaphor for grief, and some rock-solid nasty bits that keeps the film from sinking into bad waters. Whalefall is a fun film to watch, but isn’t much to digest after you leave the theater.
Whalefall follows a young man named Jay (Austin Abrams) who returns home a year after his terminally ill diver father, Mitt (Josh Brolin), took his own life by diving and not resurfacing. In the midst of his grief and the grief of his family, he takes it upon himself to ‘search for his dad’ – by diving at the point where his dad last dove. Shortly after doing so, he catches himself between a massive sperm whale chasing down a giant squid to eat. The end result being they both get swallowed by the whale, and Jay must find a way to survive. The remainder of the film cuts between long segments in the whale’s belly, and flashbacks to arguments with his dad.
Prior to the whale, the moments leading up to it are pretty rudimentary and unspectacular. All of the family members are talking about their memories with their late dad, spending time together out on their backyard porch – just stuff to fill the gap. The time spent with Jay and his mother and two sisters feel incredibly bored and the dialogue are all clues to what will eventually happen. It’s clear this is a means to an end, because the interest is clearly not here in the humanistic moments. We get mopey Jay, angstily navigating the fireside drinks with his family, lying about his true intentions of renting an oxygen tank, until we get to the actual dive. By no means are we let into Jay and his intentions – just typical ‘my dad and I were on weird terms’ and regret about not patching things out after he passed. In a bottle these elements can be compelling, but we don’t see said ‘compelling’ in this film.
Where Whalefall picks up is when Jay must fight to survive. The whale’s stomach is grimy, crackly, ooey, gooey – a sundae of nastiness that really sold the struggle. While this may not be universal to everyone’s viewing experience, I was able to see what would happen next as Jay progressed through the whale’s body. With that said, once I anticipated what would happen it didn’t diminish my enjoyment once these moments occurred. I hadn’t read the book going in, but Jay gets severely messed up and mutilated in Whalefall. Broken bones, deep cuts, fluids of various kinds, and a little dash of disfigurement, mmm mmm mmm! This was something I didn’t anticipate going in, but if you’re a little sicko (like me) you’ll have a little hoot – maybe a holler – with this one.
The primary issue with Whalefall is that nothing exists in its own orbit, all elements bottleneck into the main circumstance and resolution. In Whalefall specifically, most every moment within the film is a ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ of sorts that would pay off in some capacity near the end. What is lost is we aren’t given much characterization, only surface level dynamics that provides a semblance of context to the character’s relationships but never some form of deeper introspection. Which would be fine in most movies, but in the last third of the film it is aiming to elaborate on the ‘metaphor’ of the whale, the ‘whalefall’ event, and how grief consumes. It’s asking the viewer to project their own grief into the film and that’s how the film is able to succeed with most viewers. The brief epilogue is the only real moment where you can coexist with the characters, otherwise there’s no insight – only setup.
For all intents and purposes, Whalefall is a solid popcorn flick, decent on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee. Not really paying attention? Sure, you’ve got some allowance to spend on attention elsewhere. If not for seeing this in a theater, I would’ve lost focus fast. The whale moments and the gore are all incredibly sick and elevate a really sleepy narrative. This came out at the same time as a slew of new movies so if you waited until this was blasted on FX a year from now, most people (myself included) wouldn’t blame you. If you’ve got some free time and you want a little anxiety-induced adrenaline, this is not a bad way to get that fix.
