The Whale movie review

MOVIE TITLE: The Whale

This touching film by A24 is now available in select theaters and online streaming.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour 57 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: A

IN A NUTSHELL:

This touching film is based on a theatrical play also called “The Whale.” It’s about a reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter before his imminent death. It is brutally honest, raw, and heartbreaking.

After the movie debuted at the Venice Film Festival, he was given a six-minute standing ovation by the audience. He deserved every minute of it and more. It brought him to tears and has ignited new love and appreciation for him from Hollywood and fans around the world.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

This movie is not appropriate for children.
The first scene shows a man pleasuring himself.
Profanity, crude language, and F-bombs
Talk of a homosexual relationship

THEMES:

Redemption
Father/Daughter relationship
Dysfunctional families
Being obese
Physical appearance
Religion
Saving yourself and others
The search for happiness
Honesty
Homosexuality

THINGS I LIKED:

Brendan Fraser gives an Oscar-worthy performance. I could relate to him as an online professor. One of the classes I teach at a university is English, just like his character. While people have talked about his real-life weight gain, he wore a bodysuit to appear morbidly obese in this film. About the fat suit prosthetic, Fraser stated, “I developed muscles I did not know I had. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed; it was like stepping off the dock onto a boat in Venice. That [sense of] undulating. It gave me appreciation for those whose bodies are similar. You need to be an incredibly strong person, mentally and physically, to inhabit that physical being.”
It’s heartbreaking and fascinating to watch Brendan Fraser’s character vacillate between giving up on himself and having hope for a better life.
The entire cast gave excellent performances and includes Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, and Samantha Morton.
Sadie Sink’s little sister in real life plays young Ellie in the flashback scenes. Sweet.
The movie illustrates very well how we all fill our lives with something to reduce our pain, whether it be food, religion, relationships, sex, hatred, money, or something else.
The screenwriter, Samuel D. Hunter, grew up in Moscow, Idaho where the movie takes place. Brendan Fraser’s character keeps ordering pizza from “Gambino’s”, which is an actual pizza place there. The story is loosely based on Hunter’s real life as a gay man who taught writing at Rutgers University and who struggled with an eating disorder.
One-room movies are extremely difficult to film and keep an audience’s interest, but I was hooked the entire time (whale pun intended.)
Director Darren Aronofsky loves to use symbolic images and characters to get audiences to think, as he did in his dramatic film Mother! in 2017. It’s an effective storytelling technique that allows him to create layers of understanding. I love it. He also creates connections between mathematical numbers and religion in his movies. Have you noticed that too?
Samuel D. Hunter, the writer, does a fantastic job slowly revealing each character’s motivations.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

It’s a rough movie to watch.

FUNNY LINES:

* “She’s a teenager. Everyone’s insane when they’re a teenager.” – Liz (Hong Chau)

INTERESTING LINES:

“You don’t have to be angry with the whole world. You can just be angry with me.” – Charlie (Brendan Fraser)
“I don’t think I believe anyone can save anyone.” – Liz (Hong Chau)
“Do you ever get the feeling that people are incapable of not caring?” – Charlie (Brendan Fraser)