The Whale (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Darren Aronofsky

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton

The Whale is based on a play and the movie moves with the machinations of one.  Most of the film takes place within the apartment of Charlie (Fraser), a morbidly obese college professor who conducts his classes online and helpfully keeps his camera off so his students wouldn't see what he looks like.  His best friend and nurse, Liz (Chau) drops in on him daily, checks his blood pressure and discovers it is so high it may kill him at any moment.  Liz pleads for him to go to the hospital, but Charlie prefers to live out his last days in the comfort of his home.  

Make no mistake, Charlie and everyone associated with him know the end is near.   He is well past the point of no return to save himself, so he makes it a point to achieve redemption with those he has wronged.   Charlie is a sad figure, but he has hurt people in the past; specifically his ex-wife Mary (Morton) and daughter Ellie (Sink), whom he left years ago when he fell in love with a male student.  Ellie despises him, but figures she can prey on Charlie's guilt and gentle good nature to coerce him into helping her with her homework and graduate with her class.   Charlie all but ignores Ellie's obvious disdain for him and agrees to help, seeing this as a way to mend fences.

We also meet Thomas (Simpkins), a missionary from a faraway church who knocks on Charlie's door one afternoon and assists in saving his life.   Thomas is a mostly unnecessary character who acts mostly as a male companion to Ellie, who sees through him and senses a troubled past.   Simpkins plays Thomas well as a confused young man with secrets, but in the grand scheme of things he doesn't figure into the equation much.   Charlie would be someone featured in My 600-Lb. Life, but the Fraser performance transcends the convincing makeup and prosthetics into a sympathetic human being.   We soon find ourselves caring about him and not marveling at the work which went into transforming Fraser into the obese Charlie.

The Whale is not a crack at Charlie's weight, but an allusion to Charlie's love of Moby Dick and a book report written by someone long ago which he reads aloud whenever he suffers a health crisis.   We learn who wrote the report and why it resonates with Charlie so much, and acts as a catalyst for a reconciliation between Charlie and his family and Charlie and his past.   The Whale is sad, but not depressing.  The ending is inevitable, but we are hopeful can at last find peace, and those he wronged can find a way to forgive him.   The Whale also represents a return to form for Aronofsky, who even with his failures has never been afraid to take chances on material which may not play well to all audiences.