The Whale is a 2022 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Samuel D. Hunter, based on his 2012 play. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, and Samantha Morton. The plot follows a morbidly obese, reclusive English teacher who tries to restore his relationship with his teenage daughter, whom he had abandoned eight years earlier. The film was shot from March 8 to April 7, 2021, in Newburgh, New York.
The Whale premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022 and received a polarized response. Although critics lauded the acting, particularly Fraser, Chau and Sink, the film's portrayal of obesity-related struggles drew criticism. Notwithstanding, it was received with acclaim in the awards season. At the 95th Academy Awards ceremony, The Whale won the Oscars for Best Actor (Fraser) and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, while Chau received a Best Supporting Actress nomination. At the 76th British Academy Film Awards, the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Make Up & Hair, Best Supporting Actress (Chau) and Best Actor for Fraser's performance, who also received a nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama at the 80th Golden Globe Awards.
It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. on December 9, before a wide release on December 21 by A24, grossing $57.6 million against a budget of $3 million.
Contents
Plot
In early 2016, Charlie is a super-morbidly obese recluse in Moscow, Idaho. Weighing 600 pounds (270 kg), he teaches online English writing courses with his webcam off, ashamed of his appearance. His nurse Liz brings him unhealthy food despite urging him to seek treatment for heart failure, which he claims he cannot afford. Each night he orders pizza from Dan, a delivery driver he has never met face-to-face.
Thomas, a missionary for the New Life Church, lets himself in during a supposed medical emergency and insists on helping Charlie. He learns Charlie hopes to reconcile with his estranged teenage daughter Ellie, abandoned eight years earlier when Charlie left his wife Mary for a male student, Alan, whose subsequent death left Charlie grief-stricken. Charlie offers Ellie his $120,000 savings if she will spend time with him; she agrees, on condition he completes her homework, though he also asks her to write honestly in a notebook he gives her. As his health deteriorates, Liz brings him a wheelchair.
When Thomas visits again, Liz angrily confronts him before revealing she is the adopted daughter of New Life's head pastor and Alan's sister; she explains that Alan's religious guilt drove him to suicide, and Charlie's grief led to his emotional eating. Thomas nonetheless remains convinced he must help Charlie. Ellie later drugs Charlie's food with crushed Ambien; when Thomas arrives, the two smoke marijuana together and he confesses to stealing from the church and fleeing his mission in Iowa, unaware Ellie is secretly recording him.
Liz brings Mary to visit. On learning how much Charlie has saved for Ellie, Liz storms out, furious at having been deceived about his refusal of treatment. Mary and Charlie argue over his choice to leave the family, and over Ellie's cruel behaviour, though Charlie insists he still hopes Ellie will prove he "did one thing right" in his life. After a delivery, Dan lingers to check on Charlie following a coughing fit and finally sees him—reacting with shock before fleeing. Humiliated, Charlie binge-eats severely and sends his students a furious email dismissing their coursework and demanding they write him something honest instead.
Thomas returns to say he is going home: Ellie sent his confession to his church, and his family has forgiven him. He tries to quote Romans 8:13 to Charlie, but is thrown out after suggesting Alan's death was linked to his sexuality.
Cast
Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a morbidly obese and reclusive English teacher.
Sadie Sink as Ellie, Charlie's estranged daughter.
Jacey Sink as young Ellie.
Hong Chau as Liz, a nurse and Charlie's only friend.
Ty Simpkins as Thomas, a Christian missionary that befriends Charlie, Ellie, and Liz. He is based on Elder Thomas from the play.
Samantha Morton as Mary, Charlie's ex-wife and Ellie's estranged mom.
Sathya Sridharan as Dan, a pizza delivery man from the restaurant Gambino's which Charlie frequently orders from.
Production
Writing and casting
Darren Aronofsky has said that he tried to get the film, an adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter's 2012 play The Whale, made for over a decade, but could not do it because he struggled to find the right actor to portray Charlie. After seeing portions of Brendan Fraser's performance in a trailer for Journey to the End of the Night (2006), he decided that Fraser could be a good choice.
The original play was set in 2009. However, the setting was updated to 2016 in the movie. This was because Hunter wanted to show the events as being before a major "seismic change", and doing so would make it clear that the play's events were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the film, the television shows the unfolding of the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries. In the original play, Thomas, an Evangelical Christian missionary, is instead a Mormon missionary. The ethnic background or race of Liz was not specified in either the original play or the screenplay. Hong Chau, the actress chosen to portray Liz, is of Asian heritage. The final screenplay specifies that Liz was adopted as a way of accommodating Chau's casting; this was not in the initial revisions of the screenplay. Chau argued that Liz should have an unkempt look and should be tattooed, aspects that were incorporated into the character.
On January 11, 2021, it was announced that A24 had obtained global distribution rights to The Whale, directed by Aronofsky and starring Fraser. Chau, Sadie Sink and Samantha Morton joined the cast in February, followed by Ty Simpkins in March. Sathya Sridharan joined the cast at an unknown date.
At one point, the film was set to star James Corden with Tom Ford directing, but Ford left due to creative differences. George Clooney also briefly considered directing the film, but ultimately declined.
Filming
Principal photography ran from March 8 to April 7, 2021, in Newburgh, New York. It was shot in Academy ratio. Post-production began later in April.
For the role, Fraser spent four hours each day being fitted with prosthetics that weighed up to 300 pounds (136 kg). He also consulted with the Obesity Action Coalition and worked with a dance instructor for months before filming began in order to determine how his character would move with the excess weight.
Hunter stated that it is up to the viewer to interpret whether Charlie actually walks in the ending scene and Fraser argued that Charlie is finally "liberated". Sink stated that her character is emotionally traumatized and that Charlie is able to look through a façade that Ellie puts up as a barrier between herself and her father.
Release
The Whale had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022, where it received a six-minute standing ovation. It made its North American premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2022. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 9, 2022, then expanded to wide release on December 21.
The film was released on VOD platforms on February 21, 2023, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 14, 2023.
Reception
Box office
The Whale grossed $17.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $39.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $57.6 million.
After several weeks in limited release, the film grossed $1 million in its third weekend (expanding from six theaters to 603) and a total of $1.6 million over the four-day Christmas frame, then $1.4 million in its fourth weekend. It then expanded to 1,500 venues on the sixth week of its theatrical run and passed $11 million domestically, somewhat breaking the perceived ongoing trend that the general public was losing interest in prestige films in a moviegoing environment altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. These results were attributed to the praise and awards buzz for Fraser's performance.
Critical response
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 64%, based on 347 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Held together by a killer Brendan Fraser, The Whale sings a song of empathy that will leave most viewers blubbering." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 57 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. According to MovieWeb, the film polarized critics and audiences.
The Whale received positive feedback at the Toronto International Film Festival, with particular praise for Fraser's, Chau's and Sink's performances. When the film had a limited theatrical release, Variety reported that the reviews "have been polarizing, with others [than Variety's review] criticizing the film's portrayal of fat people". Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com praised Aronofsky's direction and Fraser's performance, writing that the "story is one of different levels of heartbreak and human misunderstanding" and "Aronofsky and Fraser have taken substantive risks, in the name of an insistent empathy." Robbie Collin of The Telegraph gave it a perfect five stars, writing: "Fraser seals his comeback in a sensational film of rare compassion."
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as an "empathetic, haunting, beautiful, heartbreakingly moving story of a broken man". He named it best film of the year and deemed Fraser's performance as his career's best. Variety chief film critic Owen Gleiberman also praised Fraser, calling him "slyer, subtler, more haunting than he has ever been". Matthew Creith of Out Front wrote: "The highlight of The Whale comes from an outstanding turn from Hong Chau, who gives a memorable performance in a vital role that balances Charlie's outlandish behavior." Hannah Strong of Little White Lies praised Fraser and the "strong ensemble,” highlighting Sink's "tricky role" in which she "captures the anger and sadness that comes from parental abandonment", and stating that while Aronofsky "isn't a particularly empathetic filmmaker" and The Whale is not without flaws, the film "reflects tenderly on shame, guilt, and the human impulse to care and be cared for".
Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote that the film is "meant to be a poignant consideration of guilt, sexuality, religion, remorse" but "we really only know that because the movie shouts it at us". He also criticized Fraser's performance as "lost". Mark Hanson of Slant Magazine felt that Aronofsky reins in his "typically ostentatious style", but that "considering how Libatique's camera leeringly treats Charlie as an unsightly object of pity throughout, it's difficult to deny the film's fatphobia, though its mawkishness is no less oppressive". Katie Rife of Polygon wrote: "If you look at The Whale as a fable, its moral is that it's the responsibility of the abused to love and forgive their abusers. The movie thinks it's saying 'You don't understand; he's fat because he's suffering.' But it ends up saying 'You don't understand; we have to be cruel to fat people because we are suffering.' Aronofsky and Hunter's biblical metaphor aside, fat people didn't volunteer to serve as repositories for society's rage and contempt." Mark Kermode gave the film a negative review. He said the film relies heavily on emotional manipulation to elicit a response from the audience. Kermode also commented that while Brendan Fraser's performance is commendable, the film's portrayal of obesity and its related struggles is problematic and lacks sensitivity.
Top ten lists
The Whale was on many critics' top ten lists for 2022.
1st – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
2nd – Brian Truitt, USA Today
4th – Lauren Coates & Susan Wloszczyna, RogerEbert.com
5th – Carla Renata, RogerEbert.com
6th – Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle
6th – Jeff Sneider, Los Angeles Magazine
7th – Mike Scott, New Orleans Times-Picayune
9th – Peter Debruge, Variety
9th – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
