By: Andrew Wing

The Whale is a 2022 American drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) and written by Samuel D. Hunter, based on his 2012 play of the same name. It stars Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, Journey to the Center of the Earth), Sadie Sink (Stranger Things, Fear Street trilogy), Hong Chau (Inherent Vice, Downsizing), Ty Simpkins (Iron Man 3, Jurassic World), and Samantha Morton (Minority Report, Synecdoche, New York).

The film follows Charlie (Fraser), a reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter (Sink) for one last chance at redemption.

The Whale premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022, and had a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 9, 2022, before a wide release on December 21, by A24. Fraser won Best Actor at the 28th Critics' Choice Awards and earned nominations for Best Actor at the 80th Golden Globe Awards and the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards. It has so far grossed $11 million against a budget of $3 million.

THE GOOD

I have been eagerly awaiting seeing The Whale for what feels like forever now. Seriously though, for the past year, all I’ve heard from people on social media was that Brendan Fraser was going to make his triumphant return to Hollywood as he was playing a morbidly obese, 600-pound man. But after the film premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in early September of last year and videos began circulating of Fraser receiving a long-standing ovation for giving one of the best performances of the current century, my anticipation for this movie was at an all-time high! Thankfully though, I finally got the chance to see it earlier this week, but did it match my otherworldly expectations? Keep reading to find out!

I don’t know if the film did as a whole, but one part of the movie somehow went above and beyond my already high expectations, and that was Brendan Fraser’s performance as our main character Charlie. Fraser was just unbelievable in this movie. He feels very down to earth here as Charlie. He made this character so easy to care a lot about, and this movie just really hit me emotionally and it was almost entirely because of Fraser’s performance. He just gives so much vulnerability in this role to the point where viewers can somehow feel what he is feeling at any given moment. He goes really big in some scenes and he just pours everything out on screen, and it was just one of those performances where the actor gives everything he has. Every line delivered was flawless and it is hands down the best performance of 2022 in my opinion, and he should be winning Best Actor for this at the upcoming 95th Academy Awards.

There’s no debating that Fraser won the movie, but there are some really good supporting performances in The Whale too. I thought Hong Chau without a doubt had the best supporting performance, and she just continues to make me a really big fan of hers. Her character was very grounded, felt real, and was a very likable person. She is also best friends with Fraser’s character, Charlie, and I thought their chemistry was fantastic. I mean she even had a couple of scenes where she was the standout which says a lot given Fraser’s performance. But with this, and also The Menu (see Ted’s full review here), she had herself one hell of a 2022, and she is looking likely to get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Oh, and Samantha Morton, like she did in She Said (see my full review here), comes in in one scene and pretty much steals the movie. She just crushed it in every aspect.

But aside from the performances, let’s talk about the director Darren Aronofsky. I’m not the biggest Aronofsky fan, but I love how all of his movies stay with you for a while after you watch them and how they always make you think. Well, this was his first film since his 2017 highly divisive psychological horror film mother!, and I found this to be an improvement over that one. This was much more of a contained drama which is not something I am used to from Aronofsky, but I thought he directed the film really well. That said, with this film we still get that famous Aronofsky maximalism in a different form because of the way he shows this character whose mental health has trapped him in this life.

And as for some of the technical elements of The Whale, I was a big fan of its visual style. The film really takes place in one location, Charlie’s apartment, and I just loved how they shot this movie and what it looked like. Also, this film has a 4:3 aspect ratio, and while that might annoy some other viewers, I was a huge fan of it. It’s done with almost all practical lighting as it is kind of a dim movie and it just felt quite dark which I think added a lot to the movie as a whole because Charlie’s character is also in a dark space himself not only physically speaking, but mentally as well. The makeup was amazing too as Fraser looked so real, and that has to be a huge threat to win the Oscar for Best Makeup & Hairstyling. And last but not least, I really liked Rob Simonsen’s score and I loved when it became really big at moments. It was just a really interesting score that really worked for me.

THE BAD

Now there’s no denying that I liked the film as a whole, but I did have a few problems with it. My first problem would have to be the runtime. The movie clocks in at just under two hours, and while I don’t usually have a problem with longer movies, this movie definitely could’ve been shorter. Maybe it was just the way I was feeling on the day I saw it, but I felt kind of out of it at points, and I think a big reason was because of the screenplay, which is based on Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same name, feeling a lot well, like a play. It was just very ‘writy’ at times and I just didn’t vibe with it. That said, it will certainly be getting an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay just given the competition for that category.

But to continue with that complaint, you can just feel that throughout the movie. The story never felt restrained, and it just felt pretty obvious at times where we were going and how things were going to end. But aside from that, my last complaint is unfortunately on a performance that was getting a little bit of Oscar buzz a couple of months back and that performance belonged to Sadie Sink. Her character was just needlessly cruel and she had this very abrasive personality. I don’t know, I just didn’t like the character and Sink’s performance because it felt unrealistic to me and it just felt like overacting in my opinion.

THE VERDICT

Behind the best performance of 2022 from Brendan Fraser that could win him the Oscar for Best Actor, The Whale is a powerful, deeply moving drama film from Darren Aronofsky that I was emotionally invested in from start to finish.

I liked Aronofsky’s direction, Hong Chau had a great supporting performance, the camerawork was fantastic, the score was awesome, and I’m just really looking forward to seeing this for a second time!