“The Whale” (2022) revolves around Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a virtual college English professor, who is around 600 pounds. Years after a devastating loss, Charlie reconnects with people, including his sixteen-year-old daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), whom he has not seen for eight years. It is Darren Aronofsky’s latest film and a film adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter play.
I feel very ambivalent about “The Whale.” I am impressed by the performances, and the film held my attention the entire time, but the substance of the play feels like the author set up a writing challenge for himself as opposed to writing characters who feel authentic and real. Charlie instructs his students to be honest, but Hunter and Aronofsky do not take their protagonist’s advice. The story is a provocative, hyper constructed challenge to present a “disgusting” veneer then run to the other end of the extreme and make us embrace the person underneath that veneer. For example, when the film shows Charlie for the first time, the film leverages homophobia and fatphobia to make viewers want to distance themselves from Charlie, but how many of us would want to get to know any character if we walked in on them at their most private moment, a literal le petit mort, or while they are choking on and expelling food. The film does not treat Charlie like an ordinary man. He is more akin to the protagonist in “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995) using food instead of alcohol to self-soothe and punish.
It is not fair, but we live in a society where lack of representation puts more pressure on any cultural product to live up to the expectations and lived experiences of the underrepresented group, in this case, infini-fats. It is my understanding that Hunter went on a weight loss journey, which inspired this story. Regardless of the authentic experience behind the story, it is a different perspective than the one that it depicts, which is where the stumbling occurs. Though I cannot speak for them, it is unlikely that they will feel seen through this portrait of Charlie. The film utilizes common assumptions about people his size to create his story. The way that he eats his food is not typical. He drowns himself in it. He is unhealthy, and the tension of “The Whale” lies in the ticking clock of his mortality. He only eats fast food and junk food. These presumptions are common. Charlie could still weigh a lot, cook, exercise and eat healthy, and the story would not change. The film forgets that Americans are a heavy people. Charlie will not be inherently repulsive to many people because they are him or they know him. It was a choice to make him act in a way that reflects the imaginations about how people become that size. Charlie’s story is singular, but it happens to depict a lot of prejudices that many people have about people who look like him. People are not necessarily fat because their hearts are broken, or they eat too much. Fat people do not need an excuse to exist or given the big screen treatment.
“The Whale” works because Fraser, particularly his eyes and voice, and the rest of the cast deliver performances that imbue their two-dimensional characters with enough presence and emotion that they feel three dimensional. When Charlie says something like (not a precise quote), “I was always big, but I was never this large,” it feels as if Fraser is bringing himself to the role. His work in action films prepared him for the physicality of his role. He wore a suit to make him appear as a 600-pound man, and he wears all the prosthetics, they do not wear him. It is fair criticism that the casting director could have cast a heavier actor and/or a gay one. I have been frustrated for a long time that straight men keep getting cast as gay men while gay actors are relegated to playing supporting characters if they are lucky. Filmmakers should not ignore complaints about smaller fat folks perpetuating lateral fatphobia against larger fat folks.
Hong Chau as Charie’s devoted friend, Liz, has such a commanding, visceral presence that it is easy to forget that in this film and “The Menu” (2022), she plays women who choose to have no lives outside of the (white) men that they have decided to dedicate their lives to. Chau exists in a similar space that Viola Davis did many years ago, and I look forward to when she becomes the protagonist behind and in front of the camera telling the stories that she wants.
Ellie feels less like child, and more like a plot device more who exists to serve the men of the story. She plays the evil teenage girl, and I am generally wary of any film that sympathizes more with an adult man and begins with villainizing a child. The filmmakers view her as a writing challenge like Charlie—they want to give the viewers’ opinions whiplash, but it rings false. Sadie Sink manages Ellie’s mood shifts like a brittle, sullen, resentful, working-class Rory Gilmore, which is intended as a compliment.
If viewers can accept the structure of “The Whale,” it is easy to see what attracted Aronofsky to the play. The film is humanist in nature. It confronts and eschews structured religion, but does have a vibe like “A Prayer for Owen Meany” meets “Citizen Kane” (1941) where the characters take turns being each other’s personal Jesus with a dash of mysticism, vague higher power tying it together. While the material avoids trite images of redemption, the arc’s momentum bends towards it. “To love another person is to see the face of God.” I love the ideas in theory, but I did not get that thrilling feeling when the film is effective at making me feel the same ecstasy as the characters in the denouement. I did appreciate the consistent theme of reframing characters and events. While watching the film, consider Jesus’ command, “Get up from your bed and walk.” One shot shows Ellie using a knife to carve into a wooden kitchen counter, which is similar to what profession…..? Also the denouement takes place on a Friday. I was a bit frustrated that I could not see which Bible passage was referenced. I believe that it was Romans 8:12-13.
Aronofsky departs from the play by setting “The Whale” in March 2016 Idaho, which voted for Presidon’t. It is a wistful time because it is prepandemic, but also a terrible one in the certain course towards plunging the US into a dystopian nightmare. Considering the protagonist’s sexual orientation and how his life unfolds, it makes psychological sense when he accepts his fate. It is a very American story with the interplay between religion, expensive health care, Mormon missionaries and politics on television. Most directors want to tackle this period in their work, and I applaud Aronofsky for taking an understated approach. While I prefer outright condemnations and horror, it worked for me as part of the ether.
Aronofsky and Hunter weigh “The Whale” down with provocative themes that never quite reach a genuine climax. Instead of creating complete, deep three-dimensional portraits of people, they are archetypes until their stories relent to a redemptive climax that shies away from the harsher tone of the story. These characters are a walking list of seismic life events, and everything is done with the back row in mind.
