The Whale

Prosthetic or no, it's hard to imagine anyone else in the lead role of Darren Aronofsky's new film, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Well, yes, but in the old, original meaning of the word: He evokes sympathy and sadness, not ridicule or contempt. He could and should go to the hospital, but he refuses, citing a lack of health insurance. The food isn’t so much food as it is a metaphor for all the hurt and pain he’s absorbed. Once everything finally collides in The Whale, something shattering and beautiful and honest emerges. But here’s the thing: The film is built around the idea of revulsion, and extreme consumption. When he talks to people, his eyes are wide and inquisitive, and there’s a half-smile on his face. The whole thing is a metaphor, and as such it’s pitched a few degrees off from reality. The buzz around the movie grew and grew that night and the following day, so that by the time I saw The Whale at its actual premiere in the Sala Grande, the place seemed ready to explode. [Samuel Hunter’s play](https://www.vulture.com/2012/11/theater-review-the-whale.html), it’s the story of Charlie, a 600 lb. He always seemed like a sweet guy who was just happy to be there, but he never seemed like a joke. And explode it did, as soon as the end credits started rolling. They all seemed surprised to have found themselves so devastated by the movie, and in particular by Brendan Fraser’s performance.

Director Darren Aronofsky and his star, Brendan Fraser, aim for empathy but come up short.

Here’s Charlie, keening and pleading behind a pane of glass for all of us to sigh and pout and gawk at, before moving on to the next fleeting curiosity. (Again, I see little empathy in the way this scene is framed and choreographed.) Thomas, seeing this heaving totem of misery, wants to save the dying Charlie’s soul, a witless effort toward a man who feels he’s past redemption—spiritually, morally, physically. This is a mighty act of becoming, the film seems to insist—and also one of empathy. But what’s expressed instead is a kind of leering horror, a portrait of a man gone to catastrophic ruin so that we, in the audience, may tap into our nobler, higher minds and see the worthy human being beneath the frightful exterior. Hunter’s 2012 play, The Whale is a story of a morbidly obese man, Charlie (Brendan Fraser), living out what might be his last days as his heart falters and his mind is lost to regret. And now there is The Whale, a lugubrious chamber drama that premiered here at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday.

In Darren Aronofsky's “The Whale,” the onetime leading hunk is earning Oscar chatter for his role as a 600-pound recluse, though the emotional actor is ...

It was clear from the supportive applause at the news conference that people were rooting for the actor, and that personal narrative of a career comeback combined with a showy role could take Fraser to the front of the pack. “I needed to learn to move in a new way,” Fraser said. “I looked different in those days,” he said. But when he was asked about that buzz and what it meant for the future of his career, Fraser said softly that it remained to be seen. And I think that is Charlie.” “It just didn’t move me, it didn’t feel right.” “Thank you for the warm reception,” Fraser said. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, just as you would feel stepping off the boat onto the dock here in Venice.” [Hong Chau](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/movies/hong-chau-downsizing-stereotyping.html)) warns Charlie that his blood pressure is so severe that if he doesn’t change his ways or go to a hospital, he’ll almost certainly die. And whenever the clearly emotional Fraser managed to make it to the end of a statement without his eyes filling with tears, the room full of journalists burst into encouraging applause. Stories like this are possible because of our deep commitment to original reporting, produced by a global staff of over 1,700 journalists who have all dedicated themselves to helping you understand the world. Aronofsky wanted to mount the movie for years but could never land on the right lead.

Read Deadline's review of Darren Aronofsky's 'The Whale' starring Brendan Fraser and premiering at the Venice Film Festival.

Given the industry affection for Florian Zeller’s The Father, a similarly inventive filmed-stage experience, it’s not hard to see The Whale attracting similar awards buzz and not just for Fraser’s lead — there’s the terrific Hong Chau, who can command attention with the mere stubbing of a cigarette, and Samantha Morton, who brings heartbreak to a glorified cameo. But it’s also a mark of Aronofsky’s acuity as director that Charlie never becomes at all freakish or monstrous — that job falls to Ellie, a friendless Facebook bully who is obviously talented but prefers to stew in her own hostility. His new competition film [The Whale](https://deadline.com/tag/the-whale/) opens with that very intent — the screen is cropped to 1:33 — which turns out to be most appropriate for a small and intimate movie about a very big man. It’s a testament to Fraser’s incredibly soulful portrayal of Charlie that the make-up elements — notably his thinning hair, doughy face and bloated body — become almost invisible once the initial shock of seeing Dudley Do-Right in such terrible shape has passed. After his spell in the self-indulgent wilderness with Noah and Mother!, however, The Whale suggests the director is very much back as that Oscar bellwether, cutting the line to put a never-better This, Charlie’s first real chance to bond with his daughter, is kicked to the curb with the arrival of Mary (Samantha Morton), Charlie’s troubled and still wounded ex-wife.

Darren Aronofsky's new film stars Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese professor. It's hard to imagine anyone being as captivating in the role, ...

The Whale is a kind of companion piece to the director's 2008 hit, The Wrestler (although, unusually for Aronofsky, he didn't write either of them), in that it involves a man with an estranged daughter, a heart condition, and a body he has pushed to painfully unhealthy extremes. Fraser richly deserves to be nominated for a best actor Oscar, and if that doesn't happen, I won't just eat my hat, I'll eat as many pizzas and cheese-and-meatball sandwiches as Charlie gets through in the film. For a film that opens with a 40-stone man suffering chest spasms after masturbating to online pornography, The Whale turns out to be disappointingly stodgy and sentimental. (One of Charlie's favourite books is Moby Dick, so the title isn't just a reference to his size.) It's rare to see prosthetic make-up on this scale outside of a body-horror movie, but it's so well done that the viewer comes to accept it within minutes. But all Charlie cares about is talking to Ellie (Sadie Sink), the 17-year-old daughter he hasn't seen since he left her and her mother (Samantha Morton) eight years earlier. The reason for this shyness is that he has been depressed since the suicide of his lover, several years ago, and he has kept eating to the point where he is morbidly obese.

Venice film festival: It's hard to feel much sympathy for Brendan Fraser's morbidly obese English teacher in this much anticipated but disappointing return ...

Fraser does an honest job in the role of Charlie, and Hong Chau brings a welcome fierceness and sinew to the drama, but this sucrose film is very underpowered. Alongside it all, there is Charlie’s love of literature, especially Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Charlie is glumly aware that he is the whale, the huge bloated entity that no one wants to hunt down or obsess over or even think about at all. He claims to the group that his laptop camera isn’t working, which is why the square on the screen where his face should be is blank.

Darren Aronofsky's The Whale fails Brendan Fraser, saddling him with a reductive role, that never moves beyond the closed-circuit claptrap.

The Whale does not engage outside of the known narrative of the actor in the film — it’s his comeback! (Reminder: the character is physically introduced through masturbation which signals the desire to shock with his body, right from the get, something opposite of the tear-drenched ending and partially why the ending doesn’t feel earned to me). He has a set routine, which includes regular visits from his caretaker, who has ties to his past (Hong Chau), and Dan, the pizza delivery guy who follows the regular instructions of delivery — leave on the ledge, money is in the mailbox. Morton, too, was more of a mainstay in the early 2000s and has faded into lesser roles. The Whale is Fraser’s first leading role in a theatrical movie in a decade. Therein lies part of the problem of The Whale, the main character is not a vessel for his own journey but for a secondary character, and, by extension, the audience.

At its Venice world premiere, Darren Aronofsky's 'The Whale' received a seven-minute standing ovation; star Brendan Fraser was visibly moved.

In that process, he’s on his journey of salvation.” Star [Brendan Fraser](https://deadline.com/tag/brendan-fraser/) was visibly moved as he was embraced by his director while extended applause rang throughout the auditorium. makes adjectives such as ‘brave’ and ‘fearless’ seem almost meaningless” and said The Whale is “cutting the line to put a never-better Brendan Fraser at the front of the Best Actor race.”

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Brendan Fraser is having a moment at the Venice International Film Festival.

[In “Mother!”](/article/fall-films-jennifer-lawrence-entertainment-darren-aronofsky-north-america-dcd030395d4c48b0a2b3c27f68c3ff3b) he was limited to a house. “For someone like Charlie to see that there’s good in someone like Ellie, it’s throwing her for a loop.” “His superpower is to see the good in others and bring that out of them.” “The Whale” was Aronofsky’s favorite kind of challenge — in that it had so many limitations. “It’s a big moment for me and, I think, for cinema.” “The last few years, so many of us have lost so much. “I was afraid to write it,” he said. And A24 plans to release it in theaters on Dec. Aronofsky and his actors could be poised to leave with trophies in hand this year, too. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, as you would feel stepping off of a boat in Venice,” Fraser said. “To a lot of Sam Hunter’s pain, it took me 10 years to make this movie and that’s because it took me 10 years to cast,” Aronofsky said. While the film already has pundits predicting Oscar nominations, Fraser is trying not to think about whether awards are in his future.

Actor says lead role of Charlie in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale is 'most heroic man I have ever played'

“I looked different in those [George of the Jungle] days. A couple of years ago I caught a trailer from a low-budget Brazilian movie, I saw Brendan in it and a lightbulb went off.” In that process he’s on his journey of salvation.” “Out of this I was getting these amazing, gorgeous things. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, as you’d feel stepping off a boat on to the dock here in Venice.” Aronofsky said he felt “deeply moved” when he first watched Hunter’s play in New York.

Brendan Fraser attends "The Whale" & "Filming Italy Best Movie Achievement Award" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4 in ...

[According to Variety, ](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/brendan-fraser-the-whale-weight-prosthetics-venice-1235359484/) "The Mummy" star is being touted as a serious Oscars contender with his portrayal in the drama. [his performance in "The Whale," ](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/entertainment/brendan-fraser-the-whale/index.html)

Body horror takes a new form in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, which chronicles the long, slow suicide of a morbidly obese man with pitiless candour but an ...

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Millennial fave Brendan Fraser, who seemingly disappeared in the 2010s, makes a belated career comeback in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. The movie may prove ...

In the wake of the profile came a groundswell of solidarity for the star who once dominated our childhoods. In a 2018 interview [with GQ](https://www.gq.com/story/what-ever-happened-to-brendan-fraser), he revealed all: his self-worth plummeted in the wake of an alleged sexual assault in 2003, followed by an aching sense of disillusionment. [Mummy](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-mummy-tom-cruise) trilogy, for one, and starred in such family rental favourites as George of the Jungle. It’s true that this is the sort of thing, where an actor eschews vanity for a boatload of makeup and prosthetics, that voting bodies love: just look at Gary Oldman’s wobbly Churchill facsimile in The Darkest Hour, or even Eddie Redmayne’s controversial take on a trans woman in The Danish Girl. But this was as much a display of collective relief as it was the product of catharsis. It seemed as though he’d waited for years, not so much for the recognition as to be vindicated; truthfully, he has.

Here at The A.V. Club, we know that there's nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a ...

[groped by former Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk](https://www.avclub.com/brendan-fraser-says-he-was-groped-by-ex-hfpa-president-1823237740), and believes that the fallout from that interaction left him all but blacklisted for over a decade. I wanted to know what I was capable of.” That’s the start of an Oscar campaign if we’ve ever heard one. On Sunday night, Darren Aronofsky’s new film The Whale premiered in Venice, where it received a six-minute standing ovation. Now, there is new clapping to talk about and it may even move you (not clickbait!). The actor told Club, we know that there’s nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a European film festival.

The 2022 Venice Film Festival is halfway through its run and, as expected, the movie event has brought together a slate of titles that have become this ...

The trailer for the movie is yet to be released. Clearly moved and trying to fight back tears, Fraser does an exaggerated bow and prepares to exit the theater, but is prompted to stay due to the continuous roar of applause. The 2022 Venice Film Festival is halfway through its run and, as expected, the movie event has brought together a slate of titles that have become this year’s standouts, and we’ll certainly hear from them in the months to come.