The Whale Review: (Venice 79) The Spectacular Interpretation Of Brendan Fraser
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Five years have passed since his last foray into the international film art exhibition in Venice, Darren Aronofsky is back in competition by presenting The Whale, of which we are offering you the review. The director’s last two works, Noah and Mother! , they were somewhat detached from the kind of stories he had accustomed us to. Characters in decline, on the edge of the abyss yet in search of a form of redemption. Exemplary is The Wrestler (perhaps his most successful work) with Mickey Rourke who after years in the shadows returned to playing an almost biographical character and demonstrated what he was capable of, only to disappear again. With The Whale the situation is quite similar; we have a man in crisis, close to death and who, before leaving, tries to fix things in his life.
The choice of Brendan Fraser as the protagonist is not accidental and recalls that of the wrestler. After becoming the childhood hero of an entire generation with films like The Mummy or Looney Tunes: Back in Action, following a variety of personal problems, he disappeared from the scene for years. He lost his role as a Hollywood icon becoming almost unrecognizable, only to be rescued from nothing by Darren Aronofsky. Again, as in The Wrestler, the film is completely focused on the character played by Fraser and we feel like saying that Aronofsky has once again given the possibility of redemption to an actor we have suffered from the lack.
The Whale Review: The Story
Charlie is a university professor who corrects students’ term papers through online lessons, in which, however, he always has the camera off. Following the death of a loved one, Charlie was unable to process the trauma by venting all his suffering on food and weighing around 220kg. Despite the constant requests of the students to replace the black screen with a face, the man seems serene about his work and continues to lead his life as long as he can. He of his problem and the risks he runs by continuing to eat, but he still seems not to care. During a day like any other, the professor however risks a heart attack and now one step away from death he is saved by a missionary boy who passed there by chance. Shortly thereafter, Liz, the nurse and friend of hers, who has been taking care of him for years and breaking the bad news, comes into the house.
If she doesn’t decide to go to the hospital, her heart will stop by the weekend. The man insists on perpetuating the error and refuses any kind of medical treatment, but when faced with death he decides that the time has come to fix what little is possible in his life. Years ago Charlie abandoned his 8-year-old daughter to run away with a man and before she dies she would like to try to reconnect. Despite the positivity and goodwill of her father, Ellie remains a girl in full adolescence forced to live with the trauma of abandonment and in front of such a revolting figure all she can feel is only disgust.
Because the movie is Charlie. Everything revolves around him, his pains and his hopes. We meet him for the first time on the sofa in his house, struggling with the physical ailments of a man who weighs over 250 kilos. He lives alone in a small apartment, teaches creative writing online and gorges himself on junk food. A sad monotony stirred by a single goal: to reconnect with his daughter, a teenager and angry. There is no need to add more to the plot, but an indication of the journey made in the room is useful: watching The Whale will make you enter Charlie’s home and life. First on tiptoe, then sitting on the sofa next to him and then uncomfortable in front of a domestic drama at times heartbreaking, which moves without ever being blackmailed. Because Aronofsky does everything with great tact and with the right tone, stimulating the audience’s empathy with a naturalness that had been missing in his cinema for a long time.
The Whale Review and Analysis
In the first scene of the film, Charlie has a heart attack and discovers that if he doesn’t get the proper treatment, his heart will stop working by the weekend. It all starts on Monday and as we proceed, blue titles mark the passing of the days, increasing the tension and suffering of the protagonist who, undeterred, does not move from home. The Whale is set entirely in the protagonist’s apartment and has a strong theatrical setting made up of entrances and exits that increase the dynamism, necessary given the monotony of the setting. It is no coincidence that the film is based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter that Aronofsky was able to transpose to the best (at least from a directorial point of view) managing to avoid boredom and heaviness.
Despite the tragic nature of the story, The Whale is very ironic and the characters’ lines meticulously placed in the right moments lighten the tone which is also excessively dramatic. However, the director does not shy away from showing the protagonist as a rather disgusting being (at least physically) by covering Brendan Fraser with kilos of makeup and relying on the voracity of eating him. Seeing Charlie in hysterics whose only consequence is eating food is rather disturbing and every time he puts his hand to his chest, a blow to the heart also reaches the viewer. The claustrophobia is amplified by the choice of a 4: 3 format that makes the spaces even smaller and the character even more cumbersome. Aronofsky was therefore brilliant in transposing The Whale which could easily be indigestible given the themes dealt with and the limits dictated by the theatrical setting.
As already mentioned in this review, The Whale makes Brendan Fraser’s performance its strong point. Charlie appears as a monster but he is an extremely human person, perhaps at the limits of humanity in his paradoxically optimistic and always positive being. What he cares about most is sincerity and in correcting the texts of his pupils he never stops repeating the importance of a sincere text. There is one thesis in particular that strikes him, it concerns Moby Dick and the sadness felt by a pupil in reading the boring descriptions of whales that the author uses not to mention his sadness. While preaching sincerity, Charlie is the first not to be so with himself, with his daughter and with his only friend, who are increasingly convinced of the wickedness of people. Maybe people don’t want to be saved and don’t need help, or maybe they just don’t have the courage to admit it.
Sadie Sink, who plays Charlie’s daughter (struggling with a role very similar to that of Max in Stranger Things), claims to hate everyone and yet when faced with a person in difficulty she cannot help but help her. Nobody wants to reveal their weaknesses to the world, but it is our weaknesses that, if shared, can represent a lifeline. The Whale is an extremely sweet and tragic film and it is difficult not to be moved in front of such a tender and tormented character, a victim of himself and of the same mistakes that he tries not to make for others. Brendan Fraser’s performance is phenomenal and although it never feels dull, Aronofsky’s attempt to tear the tears from our faces is all too evident. But honestly, we don’t care.
Unwilling to overdo it, Aronofsky almost seems to listen to the advice of Charlie, who asks his students to bring out some sincerity in what they write. That’s what the director does in a truly sincere film. An intimate story, small and huge at the same time, embellished with a measured direction, but capable of a couple of truly memorable flashes when there is to shake without wanting to impress at all costs. Because Aronofsky’s ambition resembles Captain Ahab’s stubborn indomitable on the trail of Moby Dick. And after so many overflowing, epic and biblical films, good Darren has come out of the storms him. And thanks to this pearl from The Whale he has finally captured his white whale.
On this path towards death/rebirth, Charlie is never alone: of course, dialogue with others is difficult, but there is always someone who wants to enter the house. The pizza delivery, the young evangelizer Thomas, his daughter Ellie and even his ex-wife. The emotional expressiveness guides the pen of The Whale and the characterization of Charlie who, between one stumbling and another, consolidates himself as one of the characters that we will not easily forget in the next season of the Oscars. The Whale is in fact at its best when Aronofsky lets Fraser be Fraser.
Under the kilos of prostheses, there is the same sincere and open-hearted star who conquered the public in the nineties: this emerges above all in the relationship with the nurse Liz, a vehicle to access not only Charlie’s soul but also the star that is underneath. The sweetness of Fraser’s soul slowly emerges as a powerful counterweight to the brutality of the condition that consumes him. From the purest interiority, we move on to celestial immensity with The Whale, which retains some of Aronofsky’s archetypal writing traits but gives us an immense gift: leaving room for history. To that of Charlie, first of all, of purity and redemption, to that of families and their saving power, and to that of a director who approaches the viewer as never before.
The Whale Review: The Last Words
The Whale retains some of Aronofsky’s archetypal writing traits but gives us an immense gift: leaving room for history. To that of Charlie, first of all, of purity and redemption, to that of families and their saving power, and to that of a director who approaches the viewer as never before. A touching and merciless domestic drama like all sincere things. The Whale made us get up with difficulty from the lounge chair. Thanks to Darren Aronofsky finally outspoken and an extraordinary Brandan Fraser. His Charlie is from an Oscar and his film (perhaps) is from Leone D’Oro.
