Random Movie Review - The Whale

 

So this is the film that people are saying is Brendan Fraser's comeback into the world of acting. Well, certainly looks like a film that would no doubt put him back on the map. Many of you will know him more for his comedic roles and his work with the Universal Monsters and of course the Looney Tunes. Never thought I would see him do a pretty dramatic role, but it's good. Not always the best thing to be typecast for a specific genre of film, so I'd say this is a good thing. Bought to us by the director of the well known films Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream and the distributor of many horror films, but also films like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and The Disaster Artist. So very much a film that won't be for everybody, but people will remember it for a while I'm sure. Let's take a look:

The film tell us the story of a morbidly obese man called Charlie (played by Fraser). He spends much of his time being an all online English professor who teaches online writing courses, but always keeps his webcam off out of fear to what his students may think of him. During what he may think will be the last week of his life, he desperately wants to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter Ellie (played by Sadie Sink), but because of what he did to her, she has reservations and all that. He's cared for by a nurse and his only friend, Liz (played by Hong Chau) and gets visits from a missionary called Thomas (played by Ty Simpkins) who wants to enrol him in a group called New Life, unaware of Charlie's past life with them. With the week being what it is, it may be his last for all we know. But certainly one he will remember for sure.

It's a difficult watch for some people, but I often find that the best films are the ones that really pull at your heart strings and just make you be put off from doing something bad. In this case, eating a lot of junk food and takeaways. Some people may not like how morbidly obese people are portrayed in this film, but as someone who knows at least one person like that, this is a good representation. There is a good reason as to why he is obese and the way he is treated by those who don't like him, is pretty much what happens in real life. Those of us that are big, often get bullied and made fun off. But it's people like Charlie here that get the worst of it because of how big he is. But overall it's a very unsettling and dramatic film that fits well into A24's filmography and one that people will be talking about for a while I'm sure. If you need some way to be forced to lose weight, this may be the film that will help you to be motivated to do just that. 8/10