The Whale

The Whale

A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 117 minutes
  • Genre: Drama
  • Stars: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, Sathya Sridharan, Huck Milner, Ryan Heinke, Ryan Heinke, Huck Milner, Jacey Sink
  • Director: Darren Aronofsky
 Comments
  • mtlmom - 21 June 2024
    Sad AF
    An extremely sad glimpse inside the world of an extremely obese gentleman. Starts off depressing & ends in more sadness & complete heartache. Bravo Brendan Frazier for a helluva performance. Completely believable. I was entranced by the character & his complete & total lack of managing ANYTHING in his life. Set inside his apartment, you could almost smell the sweat, old food, grease, bathroom waste. I was captivated & disgusted the entire time. Curious going in & kinda disgusted coming out. Can't believe an entire movie was written around this character & more unbelievable is that I watched the whole thing.
  • wiredranch - 22 April 2024
    Tried for months to finish this.
    So I got Paramount+ in November (5 months ) and have tried to watch this much revered movie.

    Finally quitting just after the one hour mark. It is slow, depressing and not all that wonderfully acted. Sorry, it's just not!

    As noted elsewhere, the morbidly obese character was much better - and honestly depicted - in the excellent Gilbert Grape. You could actually feel for the mother when she said "I wasn't always this way."

    Fat suit aside, there isn't much praiseworthy here. Like Mickey Rourke, it's a comeback for Brendan Fraser. That's nice but not Oscar worthy.

    You've been halfway through this, I feel like Flynn (Walter Jr.) in Breaking Bad: why don't you just die already?
  • zukowskipatryk - 21 March 2024
    Honestly... One of the most important movies I've watched. And my rating is 9.5/10, not just 9.
    I didn't know anything about this movie. Just that it's about Brendan Fraser playing an overweight man.

    It's more than what I expected it to be. It's big on emotions, it's big on the characters. It's very honest, and I just have to say: Brendan Fraser killed it with his performance. Not for a moment did I think that his character wasn't 100% believable. It's a performance worthy of an oscar.

    I won't bore you with any more pointless words. You still have to watch it in order to see how good and important it is. It tackles many subjects, beyond obesity and I think a lot of people will connect with it. It's not a movie about obesity - it's about humanity. Really beautiful. Watch it.
  • lolyfe-20868 - 10 January 2023
    Not a "Feel good" movie!
    I cannot explain what mood you should be in, to truly appreciate this film. But its definitely not the typical trash that hollywood has been churning out lately. Be ready with a pocketfull of tissues.

    What starts as a slow low budget drama, begins to get uncomfortable halfway in and continues to pick up emotional steam as it goes on. Last time I remember a movie with such impact while basically filming its entirety in one room was "Glengary Glen Ross". And that one was packed with stars. Frazier carries the load in this one.

    Intense. Well worth the ticket price. Brendan should see an award this year.
  • mattshipp-66815 - 7 January 2023
    Incredible Performance!
    First off you don't go to see The Whale, you go to see experience Brendan Fraser's greatest performance to date.

    The film's plot is a very basic one in which a heartbreakingly house-bound morbidly obese man tries to reconnect with his daughter. What I didn't go into this film expecting was just how simultaneously heartbreaking, powerful, and influential a performance Brendan Fraser was going to give.

    This film broke me multiple times, in the theater, into watery eyes and down right tears at times. If you see this movie and don't get teary eyed, you're not human. Hong Chau and Sadie Sink also give great performances that supplement Charlie's story in ways I wasn't expecting.

    Overall, Brendan Fraser deserves the Oscar for Best Actor for this film, with at least a nomination for Hong Chau for Best Supporting Actress, it was an incredibly powerful, heartbreaking, and ineffable story of how everyone needs someone, and with that begs a question, without someone who do we become?
  • wittkecmission - 4 January 2023
    Go easy on the trans fats...
    Oh my god. I came very close to crying and I don't easily do that. Brendan Frasier's character and performance deeply moved me and gave me a lot of perspective. He represents the frustration, despair, and loneliness that the vast majority of us experienced during the pandemic. The Whale is the story of a gay man who loses his lover, falls into depression, engorges himself with fast food upon fast food, blows up like a weather balloon and refuses medical attention because he would much prefer the sweet deliverance of a heart attack. But before he departs from Earth, he attempts to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter and to see if he has done one good thing in his life. It's a powerful tale that nobody is beyond redemption. If Brendan Frasier doesn't win an Oscar, I will be VERY upset. Also, I would like to address the woke mob criticizing the fact that a non-obese actor is playing an obese character and saying, "Don't even TRY to put yourself in their shoes because you could NEVER know!" First of all, the main point of acting is NOT being yourself for a few minutes, to gain perspective and experience. Second of all, should only obese actors play obese characters? Because a lot of them would not be comfortable doing that. Third of all, casting should be based on merit as much as accuracy. The best possible actor should be chosen for the role and Brendan Frasier has proven himself in this case, which is why The Whale merits a 10/10.

    P. S. This film was surprisingly tame by Darren Aronofsky's standards. I was expecting at least three nightmarish scenes based on his previous films like Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan.
  • lasimow - 2 January 2023
    The best at what he does
    Darren Arronofsky can add another masterpiece to his film repertoire. Like almost all of his other movies, "The Whale" is incredibly depressing, dark, and hard to watch. It pulls on the strings of the human condition which we don't want to think or talk about... yet most of us think and talk about them every day. It's so difficult to watch, but completely engrossing at the same time. Arranged like a play, the whole film takes place in one room. We watch as a 600 pound man eats himself to death over the course of a week. Replace food with drugs or alcohol, and this movie could have been a completely accurate depiction of someone dying from gradual drug exhaustion. It's almost satirical. Fraser should win an Oscar. It's easily the best movie to come out in recent years.
  • fulleralecia - 31 December 2022
    I wanted more out of this movie.
    I want to think maybe high expectations hurt my perception of this movie, but honestly I don't know if I would've liked it anymore had I known nothing about it.

    I think that it had so much potential, but fell flat with the storyline. His daughter who he hasn't seen in 9 years he reaches out to because he thinks he is dying and when she arrives it is kind of like she hadn't seen him for a week. I know her character was supposed to be unlikeable but her character had really no depth, just hateful and mean. They could've added more to her understandably let down and abandoned personality. That's kind of how I felt about everything though. Maybe had there been flashbacks of Brendan's character younger with his partner, delving into their relationship more or his struggle with mental health or the period when he chose to leave his family....there wasn't enough depth to any of that. No connection to his partner and what lead him to what he became. I wanted to connect more with this story, I wanted to feel more his past that lead him to his miserable future.

    I'm also not saying Brendan's performance wasn't good, but I'm not sure I felt it was Oscar worthy. I don't know, I wanted to cry, I wanted to feel it, I wanted the "life is so short and what you make of it feeling" before heading into this New Year, but it just wasn't there for me. And I was bummed.
  • safesilenceofsnow - 28 December 2022
    horrible fat-shaming
    Yet another Arronofsky film where all he does is cruelly make fun of his offbeat characters, and poke and poke and poke and poke. This movie is so offensive that it will be the last time I'll watch any of his mean movies. Grow up, Darren, and learn to turn the camera around on to your own ugly, geeky self. You have no right to continue making money by making fun of people. That's what you've done in every single one of your movies, like you're some special, perfect, flawless angel.

    Darren portrays the poor obese character in his movie as a binge-eater of filthy foods, as do most thin people, never considering that people are overweight for their entire lives due to hormonal, chemical malfunctions for which there are no cures. Or due to their DNA. Most people are overweight because of physical disability, not the other way around. I know a lot of obese people, and none of them eat like Darren shows the main character eating; shoving multiple pizzas into his mouth after adding lunchmeat and mayonnaise to the pizzas. Obese people may binge eat or overeat, but that doesn't mean they eat disgustingly. The director clearly did zero research on the life of his main character other than on how to make a skinny guy look fat. WHY DIDN'T HE HIRE AN OBESE ACTOR WHO TRULY KNOWS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE OBESE? He could have hired someone like Dan Goodman, who is formerly obese.

    This is a pathetic movie that feels like being in an elementary schoolyard watching the school bullies humiliate kids.
  • brentsbulletinboard - 26 December 2022
    An Exercise in Enlightenment for the Close-minded
    The old saying about glass houses and not throwing stones seems fittingly apropos here, both for the characters in this story and the ever-so-cynical critics who have so unfairly and recklessly flung their condescending bile-laden assessments toward this offering. Director Darren Aronofsky's latest tells the heartbreaking and heartwarming tale of a 600-pound gay man (Brendan Fraser) whose health is quickly failing and struggles to make up for past misgivings and to work out long-lingering self-worth issues during what time he has left, neither of which come easily and often seem insurmountable. At the same time, however, we also see a character who frequently and genuinely manages to see the best in people, despite having often been the object of cruel, unapologetic ridicule and needlessly hard on himself. It's an outlook that few of us are able to imagine, let alone sustain, but, having been on the receiving end of both the good and the bad in others, he chooses to look for the best and to believe that such a benevolent attitude is our natural tendency, despite seeming evidence to the contrary. Now if he could only come to embrace the same view for himself. This thoughtful, insightful picture gives us much to contemplate (something many mercilessly ignorant, shallow-minded reviewers seem to have failed to grasp), reminding us to make the most of our beliefs during the short time we have in our lives. Admittedly, there are some segments in which the dialogue is somewhat awkward and stilted (even though the rationale behind this is ultimately revealed, even if a bit odd when initially introduced). But this modest shortcoming is more than made up for by the film's superb ensemble cast (arguably the best I've seen thus year), with stellar performances by Fraser (truly deserving of this year's best actor honors) and a fine crew of supporting players, including Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton and Ty Simpkins. I truly feel sorry for those who have missed the message behind this excellent offering, but, then, if they've never walked in the shoes of someone like the protagonist, I suppose that's understandable. For those who have been there, though (like myself), this is a moving tale that easily draws out the compassion in others - provided they have it to give in the first place (something I have to wonder about given some of the reviews I've read). If it's something that the cynics have never had to contend with before, then maybe they'll learn something from watching this release.