Starring: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau & Ty Simpkins
A reclusive and morbidly obese English teacher that has suffered great tragedy tries to reconnect with his teenage daughter after almost a decade apart.
The Whale has been on my radar ever since learning that Brendan Fraser won an Academy Award for best actor last year beating the likes of Bill Nighy and Austin Butler. If you’d have said me that the star of George of the Jungle and Looney Tunes: Back in Action was to win an Academy Award I probably would’ve laughed and assumed you were joking. Brendan Fraser has never really been known for producing great acting performances and there aren’t too many films that’s he’s appeared in that I would consider a must watch as the one time star of The Mummy seemingly drifted off into obscurity making nothing more than straight to DVD B movies. Prior to watching The Whale I would consider his small but deeply impactful role as Ben Sullivan in the TV show Scrubs as his best display of acting throughout his career and he only actually featured in 3 episodes of the show as he made cameo appearances. However that has all changed since finally watching The Whale.
Brendan Fraser was simply incredible throughout the entirety of this movie as he plays Charlie, a morbidly obese man who is confined to his chair for most of the day and is on the brink of heart failure. His characters story is filled with constant sadness and regret as he struggles to deal with the loss of his beloved boyfriend Alan as well as dealing with guilt of leaving his daughter when she was 8 years old in pursuit of a happier life with his new partner. The sadness that is ingrained in Charlie’s life is so heart wrenching and moving that it’s hard not to feel nothing but sympathy towards him despite abandoning his daughter all those years ago. Fraser plays the role so beautifully as he draws you into Charlie’s story where you can only see sadness and pain in his eyes despite his attempts to try and mask it to those closest to him, the eyes never lie.
There was a brief moment in the film where Brendan Fraser’s expressions were so impressive as he was able to convey a mixture of sadness and fear at once in just a small change to his facial expression. The scene was when Charlie had opened his front door during the day and felt the breeze and sunlight hit his face, probably for the first time in a long time, and you could see the sadness come across his face where it felt as though he came to the realisation that he has allowed his depression and the tragedy that he had suffered take over his life so much so that he no longer went outside and you could see just how much he missed experiencing the world first hand as opposed to watching it pass by through a window. In that exact moment you could also see the fear of stepping outside of his home and what that would entail. A life where he’d be mocked for the size he had allowed ballooned to in an appearance conscious society. A society where everybody judges with their eyes rather than taking the time to peel back the pages and see what buried deep within. It was quite an innocuous scene that didn’t really have any consequence to the rest of the movie but it really highlighted how great Fraser can be given the right role. That’s just one fine example of Brendan Fraser’s excellent range of acting throughout The Whale and I truly hope this gives his career another lease of life as this honestly is the performance of a life time.
Despite Fraser grabbing all the plaudits, his supporting cast were also excellent too which just amplified how good this movie is. I felt like each cast member shared great chemistry with each other with the little time they each spent together on screen and I was really excited to see Sadie Sink, star of Stranger Things, perform so brilliantly away from the show that propelled her career. It’s sometimes so hard for actors of a great TV show to perform at a high standard doing something else when they are mostly known and probably always will be known for playing that one character career defining character. If you look at the cast of Friends, I feel everybody besides Jennifer Aniston failed to step out of the shadow of the characters they played which hindered how good their careers could’ve been away from the show. I’m glad Sadie Sink was able to crush this performance and show a completely different side to her acting capabilities as she played Charlie’s estranged daughter and the end scene which her and Brendan Fraser shared was very touching. In addition to Sadie Sink, Hong Chau was equally incredible here as she too was nominated for an Academy Award but wasn’t as fortunate as Fraser to win the big one. She was so tender and caring towards Charlie as she plays his late boyfriends sister and while she takes care of him when he’s at his worst she also attempts to act as his wake up call in a last ditch effort to save Charlie from himself.
One of the common things I’ve seen crop up in reviews for The Whale is the criticism of a lack of story as nothing is perceived to happen. While everybody is universally applauding the acting displays, there’s some regular critiques to the lack of movement in the story. To the cynics I can only ask what did you expect? It’s a movie that centres around a morbidly obese, practically immobile man who is severely suffering and struggling with depression while battling heart failure. The movie needed powerful acting displays for it to be watchable and it’s a story of redemption as Charlie tries to mend some fences with his daughter before the inevitable end of his short life. I think if the story had more moving cogs to it the quality of acting would be nowhere near as high due to focus being taken away from the character development and placed elsewhere.
Overall, The Whale was fantastic from beginning to end, which despite being close to 2 hours long felt like it whizzed by. The acting is captivating, the story is very relatable given the huge problem across the globe with obesity and depression. Finally the make up team was incredible as they were able to transform Fraser into looking how he looked and that was another Academy Award that the movie rightfully won.
9/10
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