The Whale

*** RATING CTC - 2022 - Psychological drama - 1h 57m

With the help of prosthetics and CGI Brendan Fraser balloons to become Charlie an online literature professor who has been eating himself to death since his lover's suicide some years earlier. Darren Aronofsky has not tried to open up Samuel Hunter's original play instead emphasising the claustrophobic confinement of its one set - Charlie's dreary apartment. Maintained by his dead partner's sister Liz (Hong Chau) Charlie cuts a tragic even saintly figure. Other characters - his stroppy wife even stroppier daughter and a bizarrely determined door-to-door missionary - are barely credible but Fraser's Oscar-buzzed performance fills the frame in more ways than one. Opens February 2.

Cast: Brendan Fraser Sadie Sink Ty Simpkins

Release date: 2 February 2023

Official Trailer

Review

8/10 IMDB
65% TOMATOMETER
73% AUDIENCE SCORE

Fraser's choices are so subtly intelligent that we barely notice what amounts to his costume so attuned are we to the way his Charlie teeters on the brink of life and death.

Fraser's portrayal ... is utterly transformative. Bearing witness to Fraser's genius is well worth the existential torment The Whale may inflict.

The performances are good across the board (especially from Fraser who should earn every male lead acting award this year) and the film certainly delivers an emotional wallop particularly at the end.