The Whale [2022]

August 8, 2024

I oftentimes joke about how I don’t like watching drama movies because they usually feature one person slowly dying for two hours. I much prefer action movies featuring a lot of people quickly dying for ninety minutes. And yet I really loved the movie we’re going to be talking about today. The Whale is an intelligent and emotional movie about a morbidly obese professor during the supposedly last week of his life. Brutally honest and without any signs of emotional manipulation, this is a movie that’s going to make you think. Not just about the characters in the movie but about your own life. Perhaps it will even make you into a better person.

Apart from those elements, what I loved most about The Whale is the respect it showed to its viewers. And also the respect it showed to its characters. If you want to go, you want to go, man, I get it. These are difficult and polarizing subjects in our society. And I’m not talking about obesity but about a wide array of mental health issues like suicidal tendencies for example. The more you start to think about this movie the more it becomes clear just how wonderfully complex and thought-provoking it is. Just consider the obvious concept of morbid obesity.

Have we ever thought, as a society and as individuals, that these people are trying to kill themselves? Is there any difference between slowly eating, drinking, or drugging yourself to death? What kind of people and society would allow this to go on? Probably the same society that created the chain reaction we’re witnessing at the end of this movie. You already know the answer to that question, a tribal kind of society and a tribal kind of people. Something that’s in contrast to what we see in The Whale. Here, Charlie is exceedingly lucky because he has people in his life who are trying to help him.

Some of them even insert themselves into the situation, something I doubt happens for most people in life. Although I won’t deny our natural instincts to help other people, especially if they seem like they need that help. There’s also a strong element of voyeurism in The Whale. There’s a reason why all these television shows about morbidly obese people are so popular. The movie uses that desire to not only feed the viewers graphic images of what living with obesity means but, more importantly, to tell the story of why this is all happening. I feel like it tries to bring closer these “brainy subjects” to ordinary people thus alienating the “film crowd”. Those people might find it too pedestrian and corporeal.

We find the protagonist of our story Charlie having a heart attack on his sofa. Suddenly a missionary from New Life Church hears his cries and helps him to calm down. You see, Charlie is a morbidly obese online English lit teacher who refuses to go to the hospital. He has exactly one friend taking care of him, a friendly nurse Liz. And Liz tells him he’s suffering from congestive heart failure and that he needs to go to the hospital. However, Charlie wasn’t always like this…

Since Charlie is not dying of cancer or Alzheimer’s, The Whale was much easier to watch. At least to me, since I find it very hard to watch movies featuring these plots as I know that’s something that awaits not only the people closest to me but me as well. And I already went through one round of deaths, with the second, even more fucked up wave getting closer each year. After all this doom and gloom, I still have to say that there’s something uplifting and liberating about this movie. It makes us appreciate our lives and the experiences we not only had but we’re going to have. It puts things into a perspective.

Much like the essay young Ellie wrote about the novel Moby-Dick also known as The Whale. The movie The Whale is actually based on a play written by Samuel D. Hunter. And the play is loosely based on Samuel’s struggles with binge eating although he’s also gay and thought expository writing at Rutgers University. Brendan Fraser gave a great performance here as this is basically a one-man show. Still, it would be unfair not to mention young Sadie Sink who was the embodiment of a rebellious teen or charming Ty Simpkins. And Hong Chau deservedly received a nomination for best supporting actress.

I absolutely did not expect a movie like The Whale to come from someone like Darren Aronofsky. I mean, halfway through, I was still expecting Charlie to open a portal to another world. Or for him to turn into an actual whale and transcend human existence. I just remembered Tusk, a bizarre Kevin Smith movie also without any supernatural elements. Still, Aronofsky did direct Requiem for a Dream following drug addicts slowly disintegrating, and The Wrestler, featuring a similar redemption story. I guess my mind was focusing on The Fountain more than any of his other movies. Finally, I have to admit that I also loved the 4:3 picture format, it made things more personal.