Starring: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simkins, Samantha Morton
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 117 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2023
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This film dramatises the life of an obese, gay lecturer, who teaches his students online. He attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter, following a health crisis that threatens his life.
This American drama is drawn from a screenplay written by Samuel Hunter from an adaptation of a 2012 play of the same name. The movie won the 2022 Critics Choice Award for lead actor, Brendan Fraser, and is an Oscar contender for Best Actor.
The film tells the story of a morbidly depressed English teacher, Charlie (Fraser), who is grossly obese. Charlie is desperately trying to restore his relationship with his conflicted, alienated teenage daughter, Ellie (Sink). Afraid to show his obesity to his students, he teaches them on-line and switches his webcam off, lest they see him.
In his plight, a New Life Church missionary, Thomas (Simpkins) tries to evangelise Charlie, but his only friend, Liz (Chau), a nurse, does not think he is worth saving. Thomas disagrees. Charlie’s male lover is deceased; suicided because of religious guilt. Charlie has stolen money to entice his daughter to persuade her to spend more time with him. To continue to help Ellie, Charlie plagiarises an essay for her from the writings of Herman Melville, and he draws it from Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick which gives the movie its title: whales are huge, just as Charlie is. Ellie confronts her father about his dishonesty, and father and daughter are finally reconciled as Charlie nears death.
Overall, the movie has a complex plot, and Fraser is courageous in taking on the role of Charlie, and his performance is particularly memorable. It accurately portrays anxiety, depression and inner turmoil in ways that extract clear empathy from viewers, and his performance is compellingly realistic. The film’s script is well-crafted and aims to enhance the human spirit. It asks viewers never to judge people without trying to honestly understand their personal anxieties and insecurities. In this film, that means attempting to grasp the meaning of love, betrayal, rejection, and self-destruction. This is a film that is acted and directed movingly. It is a tribute to Aronofsky’s direction that the characters which his film depicts can be as flawed as they are, and yet they still are able to care and experience hope.
This is not an ‘enjoyable’ movie. Rather, it is one that challenges, and which has dramatically rewarding moments. The film invites viewers into appreciating those moments under the guidance of an unusual style of direction by Aronofsky, who almost dares the viewer to find humanity and sympathy in people’s physical and psychological plights. Frequently, Aronofsky flirts with what the figure and personality of Charlie is grossly projecting, and then pulls back to make telling dramatic points. As a result, the film veers grimly from harsh reality to melodrama and morbid fascination. It is a showcase of excellent acting and astute direction, and it crosses an inspiring finishing-line.
The human spirit is ultimately uplifted by the movie and the genuine empathy it arouses. However, at times, the movie emotionally assaults the viewer to convey its core messages. At such times, honesty and empathy come at a price – the film almost seems to attack what it wants to defend, but it preserves its overarching theme, which is ‘the impossibility of (us) not caring’. This is a film that projects hope, human conviction, and belief in the human spirit struggling to survive against insurmountable odds, and the film uses Charlie’s extraordinary obesity as the lightening rod to argue its case. Aronofsky’s lightening rod strikes frequently, but it is humanity, love, and caring that ultimately survive.
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