The Whale Review: Darren Aronofsky’s worst subjects in a fat suit

This review by The whale was originally released following its premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. It was updated and re-released for the film’s theatrical release.

A24 The whale dumps all of Darren Aronofsky’s worst tendencies into a fat suit. It is an exercise in humiliation in the style of Aronofsky’s Tortures Requiem for a Dreambut it focuses on an even more vulnerable target than requiemaddicts. It’s also full of the biblical pet wank Mother!, Noahand The fountainbut focuses on a Christ figure whose masochistic superpower is to absorb the cruelty of everyone around him and store it safely within his massive frame.

To be fair, some people enjoy this kind of misery. But those viewers are also warned that not only is this film hard to stomach and likely to actively hurt some viewers, but it is also a self-serving reinforcement of the status quo — which is one of the most boring things a film can have.

For a film that encourages viewers, in the broadest of readings, to consider that there may be a painful backstory behind bodies they consider “disgusting” (the film’s word), The whale seems to have little interest in the perspective of his protagonist, Charlie (Brendan Fraser). Charlie is a divorced, middle-aged man living in a small apartment somewhere in Idaho, where he teaches English composition online. Charlie never turns on his camera during lectures because he’s fat – very fat, about 600 pounds. Charlie has trouble getting around without a walker, and he’s hidden adaptive gadgets like prehensile canes around his house.

If an alien landed on Earth and wondered if the human species found its tallest members attractive or repulsive, The whale would communicate the answer clearly. Aronofsky turns the soundtrack louder and louder as Charlie eats to emphasize the wet sound of lips closing. He’s playing ominous music underneath those sequences, so we know Charlie’s doing something really very bad. Fraser’s neck and upper lip are perpetually covered in sweat, and his t-shirt is dirty and covered in crumbs. At one point, he removes his shirt and slowly walks to his bed, limp rolls of prosthetic fat dangling from his body as he leans toward the camera like the rough beast that he is. In case viewers still don’t understand that they should find him disgusting, he recites an essay about it Moby Dick and how a whale is “a poor big animal” without feelings.

And that’s exactly what Aronofsky conveys about him by directing the film. The story in The whaleThe first half is a gauntlet of humiliation that begins with an evangelical missionary named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) walking in on Charlie while he’s having a heart attack, his laptop still playing gay porn from a pathetic attempt at masturbation. Charlie’s nurse and only friend Liz (Hong Chau) is mostly nice to him, although she provides him with meatballs and buckets of fried chicken. So is Thomas, although he is less interested in Charlie as a person than in a soul to save. But Charlie’s 17-year-old daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) openly despises him and says the most vicious things she can think of to punish Charlie for abandoning her and her mother Mary (Samantha Morton) when Ellie was 8 years old .

Aronofsky and writer Samuel D. Hunter (adapting his own stage play) only reveal the condescending punchline of it all in the second half of the film: Charlie is a saint, a Christ figure, the fat man who loved the world so much that he letting the people in his life treat him like complete dog shit to absolve them of their hatred and him of his sins. Meanwhile, a subplot about Thomas’ early life in Iowa makes the bizarre claim that people actually try to help when they treat others unkindly, which can only be true if the target of that animosity doesn’t know what’s good for them. So what is it? Should a person turn the other cheek or be cruel to be kind? Depends on if they are fat it seems. Charlie never comments on other characters’ smoking and drinking, but they certainly comment on his weight.

Perhaps the most frustrating part The whale is how close it comes to some kind of insight. Aronofsky and Hunter just had to show a little empathy and curiosity towards people Charlie’s size instead of paternalistically guessing at their motivations. The main culprit here is a plot point where Charlie refuses to go to the hospital even though his blood pressure is dangerously high and he’s showing symptoms of congestive heart failure. First he lies to Liz and says he doesn’t have the money to pay the huge medical bills he would face as an uninsured patient. Then it turns out that Charlie has more than $100,000 in savings hidden away.

The whale sees this as a combination of selflessness – he hopes to give Ellie this money after he dies – and suicidal thoughts. This is what Aronofsky and Hunter’s projection reveals about Charlie’s motivations Extensive studies have shown why obese patients avoid medical treatment, and it has nothing to do with sacrificial messiah complex bullshit. Doctors are just plain cruel to fat people — and disproportionately likely to dismiss, demean, and misdiagnose them.

The other frustrating thing is that Brendan Fraser is actually a significant asset in the title role. He plays Charlie as a smart, funny, thoughtful man who loves language and creativity and refuses to let the tragic circumstances of his life turn him into a cynic. He sees the best in everyone, even Ellie, whose insults he counters with validation and support. (It hurts, you know.) Fraser’s eyes are kind and his brows are wrinkled with sadness and concern.

But if there’s any anger behind those eyes, we don’t see it. If Charlie just tells people what they want to hear in hopes of minimizing their abuse, that doesn’t translate. The film seems content with its superficial reassurances that he’s fine and just a naturally positive guy, which in turn betrays its disinterest in Charlie’s inner workings – despite Fraser’s sensitive attempt to find a man within the symbol.

Aronofsky and his team are more interested in their own cleverness. Some of the barbs thrown around Charlie’s apartment are actually pretty funny. (The film openly shows its theatrical roots: the entire story takes place in Charlie’s apartment and on the porch.) Chau, in particular, brings a tingling warmth to her role as Liz, the kind of girlfriend whose love language consists of playful insults and whose mission in life is to be a fierce defender. Of course, Liz suffers too; everyone is here. But while everyone suffers, Charlie suffers the most.

If you look at The whale As a fable, its moral is that it is the responsibility of the abused to love and forgive their abusers. The film feels like saying, “You don’t understand; he’s fat because he’s suffering.” But in the end it says, “You don’t understand; We have to be cruel to fat people because we suffer.” Aside from the biblical metaphor of Aronofsky and Hunter, fat people have not volunteered to serve as a receptacle for society’s anger and contempt. No one consents to being bullied so that the bully can feel better – that is a self-serving lie bullies tell themselves, an externally imposed ordeal that negates the point of the exercise.

in the The whale, Aronofsky posits his sadism as an intellectual experiment, challenging viewers to find the humanity buried beneath Charlie’s thick layers of fat. That’s not as benevolent a premise as he seems to think. It works on the premise that a 600-pound man is inherently unlovable. It’s like walking up to a stranger on the street and saying, “You’re an abomination, but I love you anyway,” in keeping with the strong tension of complacent Christianity the film purports to criticize. Viewers can be proud of themselves for shedding a few tears for this disgusting whale while gaining no new insights into what it’s actually like to be that whale. That’s not empathy. That’s too bad, buried under a thick, suffocating layer of contempt.

The whale is in cinemas now.