Film Review: Brendan Fraser makes a powerful return to Hollywood's big leagues in The Whale
Brendan Fraser in The Whale
- The Whale
- ★★★☆☆
‘Whatever happened to Brendan Fraser?’ very few people asked over the last couple of decades. A likeable leading presence in The Mummy (1999) and The Quiet American (2002), the injury-plagued Fraser has never really been out of work, but he returns to the big leagues with an Oscar-nominated turn in (16s), in which he plays Charlie, an English teacher so morbidly overweight that he is unable, and in any case unwilling, to leave his apartment.
Acutely conscious that he could die at any moment, the terminally ill Charlie tries to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), whilst also fending off the well-intentioned efforts of the Christian missionary Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who is trying to save his soul, and ignoring the advice of Liz (Hong Chau), the care worker who refuses to allow Charlie to eat himself to death.
Adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his own play, and directed by Darren Aronofsky, The Whale doesn’t so much betray its theatrical origins as trumpet them from the rooftops. It’s not just that virtually the entire story takes place in Charlie’s apartment; this is the kind of old-fashioned theatrical experience in which each character’s entrance is preceded by a knock on the door (it happens so frequently that we can only assume Aronofsky is mining it for comedy), and where each character has a rigidly established function rather than a role.
Fraser delivers a powerful turn as the pitiable Charlie, even if the audience is always aware that each successive contrivance is shameless in its emotional manipulation, while Hong Chau is excellent – Liz is the only character who seems truly authentic here, and especially by comparison with Sadie Sink’s Ellie, whose bratty precociousness is so cruel as to suggest she’s a sociopath-in-waiting. (cinema release)
