The Whale: LFF Film Review
Brendan Fraser is back everyone! After a long while out of the spotlight, The Mummy star makes a triumphant comeback with Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale.
The drama is set in the apartment of Charlie (Fraser), a severely obese English teacher with an eating disorder. One day, his estranged teenage daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) shows up out of the blue. They hadn’t seen each other since Charlie walked out on his family when she was eight years old and he wants to use this opportunity to reconnect with her.
Fraser was immediately surrounded by Oscars buzz after The Whale debuted in Venice in September and as much as I would love to see it, I’m not completely convinced he did enough to win. Don’t get me wrong, he is terrific and displays a range of emotions I have never seen in him before. I was deeply impressed by his transformation – I cannot believe this is the same guy I used to watch as George of the Jungle as a child. I’ll be happy if he does win the Oscar (a nomination is expected) but I’m not placing any bets on it!
To be honest, watching a movie about an obese man made me uneasy because I thought we were over the days of sticking actors in fatsuits. I was never completely sure how Aronofsky wanted us to feel about Charlie. Thankfully, he treads carefully and treats him with sensitivity and never shames him for his size. However, there are a couple of moments I feared people might laugh at Charlie but that didn’t happen (a public screening might be different).
There are a few comedic moments within the movie because somebody says something funny, not because Charlie is fat, and there are times when we feel sorry for Charlie, not because of his size or his eating disorder but because of what happened to make him that way. We learn more about his past over the course of the movie through his conversations with Ellie, Ellie’s mum (Samantha Morton), his best friend and nurse Liz (Hong Chau) and a visiting religious missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins).
All eyes are rightly on Fraser’s performance but I think Chau deserves some praise as the straight-talking Liz. She’s the only one that sees Charlie every day and checks on his health and it upsets her to see him doing this to himself. I wasn’t particularly sold on Sink as she plays the same angsty, petulant, moody child as in Stranger Things. Ellie has good reason for hating her dad but she’s so nasty.
A lot of people were moved to tears but this movie and I didn’t even come close. It tells a sad story but it didn’t hit me emotionally and I don’t rate it as highly as other people – it’s good but not outstanding.
Seen as part of the London Film Festival. No current UK release date