The Whale Review

Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale is an ambitious attempt to dive into the depths of human suffering, connection, and redemption. However, its execution often feels more exploitative than empathetic, leaving audiences with a sense of unease rather than profound understanding. While anchored by Brendan Fraser’s heartfelt performance, the film struggles to rise above its heavy-handed metaphors and stagy limitations.

Set entirely within the confines of Charlie’s small, cluttered apartment, the film paints a picture of extreme isolation and personal decline. Charlie, a 600-pound gay man mourning the loss of his lover, teaches online writing courses with his camera off, preferring to hide his appearance from the world. As the narrative unfolds, he interacts with a series of visitors: a nurse and friend, a wayward missionary, his estranged daughter, and his ex-wife. Each brings their own baggage, compounding the film’s oppressive tone and its fixation on trauma.

Fraser delivers a performance imbued with warmth and vulnerability, using his voice and expressive eyes to communicate layers of grief and longing. However, the prosthetic-heavy depiction of Charlie’s physicality often feels more like a spectacle than a sincere portrayal. Aronofsky seems to lean into voyeuristic tendencies, inviting audiences to gawk at Charlie’s struggles rather than truly empathize with them. Scenes of binge eating or physical exertion border on the grotesque, overshadowing the nuances of Fraser’s portrayal.

The film’s writing, adapted from Samuel D. Hunter’s play, often falls victim to overwrought symbolism and clunky exposition. Charlie’s fixation on a student’s essay about Moby-Dick provides a thematic throughline, but its metaphors — linking Charlie to the titular whale — feel forced and overly literal. The dialogue, at times, veers into melodrama, detracting from the emotional honesty it aims to achieve.

While the supporting cast — especially Hong Chau as Charlie’s pragmatic yet caring nurse — adds moments of levity and authenticity, the overall tone remains relentlessly bleak. Sadie Sink’s portrayal of Charlie’s angry, estranged daughter brings intensity to their exchanges, but the character’s sharpness occasionally feels underdeveloped. The film’s single-setting approach, combined with its dim lighting and claustrophobic aspect ratio, amplifies the sense of entrapment but also risks alienating viewers.

Aronofsky’s direction, known for its unflinching intensity, lacks the daring unpredictability of his previous works like Black Swan or The Wrestler. While those films balanced their dark themes with stylistic boldness and psychological depth, The Whale feels stagnant and self-serious, weighed down by its own moralizing.

In the end, The Whale grapples with themes of human frailty and redemption but succumbs to its tendency to reduce its protagonist to a symbol rather than a fully realized individual. Despite Fraser’s earnest efforts and a few moments of raw emotion, the film leaves viewers with more discomfort than insight — a missed opportunity to truly illuminate the complexities of its central character’s humanity.