Film Review: THE WHALE (2022): Brendan Fraser is Amazing in a Film That is Stagey but Ultimately Quite Powerful

The Whale Review

The Whale (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Samuel D. Hunter and starring Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton and Sathya Sridharan.

Darren Aronofsky is a genius in the craft of directing films and he gets the performance of Brendan Fraser’s career in the masterfully acted new film, The Whale. Fraser’s performance in the movie is the type of screen acting that could live forever in cinematic history as one of the most moving roles of all-time. It’s an emotionally draining piece of acting in a movie that is philosophical and deep underneath all the simplicities that seem apparent on the film’s surface.

Fraser plays a severely obese man named Charlie who is seemingly on death’s door as the film opens. His blood pressure suggests he should head directly to the hospital, but Charlie seems concerned with the cost as he claims has no medical insurance. Charlie teaches a writing course online, but he doesn’t let his students see him. He doesn’t turn the camera on.

Charlie has a checkered history where he left his daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink)’s mother, Mary (Samantha Morton) alone in order to pursue a romance with one of his male students. He’s not always a nice guy. In fact, he’s something of a jerk who some audience members could find unappealing as a character. He’s watching porn when we meet him even though he should be taking care of his health problems. Instead, he eats and ponders reasons why he shouldn’t seek medical attention.

Hong Chau portrays Liz who is Charlie’s former male lover’s sister. She is also a nurse and quite concerned with Charlie’s well-being. Liz and Charlie share some great scenes together. Their bond is at the heart of the movie although some could make the case that Charlie’s bond with his daughter, Ellie, is. Liz seems to have feelings of love towards Charlie despite any of the reasons he angers her. Ellie, on the other hand, appears to hate her dad for abandoning her when she was just 8-years old.

The other main character is Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who is a door-to-door missionary who Charlie asks to read an essay about the literary work, Moby-Dick. Thomas sticks around for some portions of the film and when Ellie shows up, Charlie offers her money to spend time with her. Charlie claims he has money in the bank which he will pay her with for her time. Ellie asks Charlie to get off the couch and come over to her at a key point in the movie and Charlie comes up a bit short in her request.

Samantha Morton is always fascinating to watch but, here, she’s nothing short of magnificent. Mary needed Charlie in her life, but he was holding on to false ideals of romantic love with his new partner rather than his need to support his daughter emotionally and financially. Is it too late for Charlie to redeem himself? The scenes with Morton and Fraser as like exercises in great acting that are masterful, and these sequences make very valid points about why Charlie has screwed up.

Sadie Sink is also unlikable in the beginning of the film. Ellie is a teenager who is an underachiever and seeks her father’s help to get by but doesn’t really respect her dad anymore because of what he did by neglecting her. Sink and Fraser’s scenes together are enough to make the viewer’s heart, pardon the expression, sink because of how somber they are. Yet, Aronofsky develops these two characters quite strongly. They are certainly not the same characters in the last scene of the film that they were in the beginning of the picture.

The Whale makes comparisons to Moby-Dick in its detailed explanations on how a whale cannot feel and simply exists. It is, however, the mention of Walt Whitman’s poetry in Leaves of Grass, which is more interesting, though. Fraser fans will remember Whitman’s poems from another Fraser vehicle, 1994’s With Honors. The poems of Whitman ask existential questions that Aronofsky’s film attempts to answer. The philosophical outlooks of the plot development of The Whale never ceases to amaze.

Fraser is a force to contend with here. He’s headed right to the Oscars with his work in this film. A nomination is assured, and a win is quite probable given the potency of his work. We like Charlie at some points and hate him at others but recognize his humanity. Underneath his beaten down, extremely overweight appearance, is a man of character and integrity who somehow lost himself along the way. Fraser can make the audience feel heartbroken as the relationship with his daughter, Ellie, delves further into an abyss that Charlie seems unable to carry it out of.

Chau and Morton also carry a lot of the weight of the movie on their shoulders as they reveal much about Charlie’s past, present and future through their interactions with him. You won’t find a better set of truly pivotal supporting performances in the same film this year. Both Chau and Morton are, in a word, phenomenal.

The last moments of The Whale will rip the viewer’s heart out. Sink and Fraser are so strong here that the movie’s previous moments of hatred expressed towards Charlie could potentially be erased in a heartbeat in a moment of clarity. You won’t see a stronger conclusion in any other dramatic film this year. If the film feels a bit stagey at times, that’s because it features a small cast of characters in mostly a singular setting. The movie could have left that setting occasionally but instead chose to stick with it for the majority of the picture and that was a good choice overall. It keeps the viewer invested in the characters.

The Whale is a movie featuring Brendan Fraser making a comeback which was unprecedented for the actor. When Aronofsky directed Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, it resulted in an amazing resurrection of that performer’s acting abilities. Rourke ultimately lost the Oscar to Sean Penn. Fraser will likely take home the Academy Award for this role here as it is one of the most memorable recent performances and is a part that viewers will never forget. Witness Fraser’s amazing work for yourself and see this film!

Rating: 9.5/10

Leave your thoughts on this The Whale review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard.