Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale”

The Whale (2022)

An emotional adaption of a problematic play with terrific performances and moments of greatness marred by tired tropes

Opening with an amazing introduction to the key characters that delivers a hefty amount of information, I was hopeful much like the feeling I had watching the opening scene from Triangle of Sadness which then descended into bland chaos. Here, it doesn’t falter in terms of its focus but it does feel highly engineered with each detail feeling considered and deliberate which is why some of the problematic elements feel inexcusable.

Adapted from Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same name by Hunter himself, it presents a strong group of unique and fallible characters that are extremely engaging but there are elements that are at best distracting and at worst offensive which don’t seem to serve any purpose aside from spectacle. I can’t help but wonder how the adaption would have turned out in the hands of another, perhaps Aronofsky himself?

Further to this, the film plays into the trope that overweight people have an origin story based in trauma leading them to a Leaving Las Vegas scenario with food in place of booze. We saw something similar in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? where the excellent Darlene Cates played Bonnie Grape whose trauma was the loss of her husband but in that case, Cates didn’t need to don a “fat suit” as seen here.

Telling the story of Charlie(Brendan Fraser), a housebound English professor and his relationship to several ecclectic individuals, there’s a high density of information among each of these threads. First, there is his best friend Liz played magnificently by Hong Chau. She’s a feisty but caring persona with a long platonic history with Charlie. The relationship between these two is fantastic and the source of the films’ best scenes. Then there’s Charlie’s estranged and caustic daughter Ellie(Sadie Sink), Christian door-to-door missionary Thomas(Ty Simpkins) and ex-wife Mary(Samantha Morton).

It’s a very tight web of narratives that can at times feel convoluted and heavy handed but on an emotional level, the film kind of works. No doubt, it’s a tearjerker. Despite the flaws, I really loved the characters and it roped me in and I was emotionally invested by the end of the first scene but it never really became as profound as I’d hoped. It has a feeling of older films like Twelve Angry Men or Rope not only because of the play-like qualities of the film, but the boiled down simplicity of complex topics. That said, it doesn’t feel dated in its tone as with The Fabelmans.

Overall, a creation of engaging characters that i wish were in a better movie though approaching it with expectations of a piece of melodrama, it’s carried by the performances and some stand out moments marred by some confounding creative choices.