The Whale (2022, R)

*Premise spoilers.*

I was mixed on the idea of seeing this film, for multiple reasons, but I was with someone who wanted to catch it before the Oscars, so here we are. While it definitely shows flashes of greatness, to me, it feels like the sort of film that’s calculated to be an “Oscar film” but doesn’t fully live up to its idea of itself.

Charlie, an English professor who teaches remotely, has always been a big guy, but in the years since his boyfriend’s tragic death, his depression and hopelessness have led him to both comfort and punish himself with food. When his nurse friend Liz warns him that his health is circling the drain, Charlie attempts to reconnect with his angry, guarded 16-year-old daughter while he still has time.

I’ll start with the off-putting parts. I get that it would’ve been difficult to find an actor who was Charlie’s size, although if they were going with a fat suit regardless, they could’ve cast someone quite a bit bigger than Brendan Frasier to start with. And the story is fueled by “lonely fat person,” “tragic gay person,” and “suffering disabled person” tropes, all of which can be grating on their own but become overwhelming when combined. The camera lingers voyeuristically on shots of Charlie struggling to stand up or walk through his apartment, and the whole film has an air of, “Witness the horror, cry ugly tears, and then shower us with acclaim!”

Considering all that, I’m far from the target audience for this film, and for what it’s trying to do, I wouldn’t say it succeeds for me. That said, there are parts of it that are lovely and/or speak to me. I like that, despite his obvious physical and emotional pain, Charlie still has a powerful streak of hope in him; when he’s motivated to, he searches for the best in people. In his friend Liz, he has at least one person who recognizes his humanity, at times pleading with him to care about his health but at others lovingly teasing him or simply curling up on the couch beside him as they watch TV. The recurring motif of the Moby Dick essay pulls in some nice themes, and I think the way that the various characters’ backstories are slowly drawn out is mostly well done.

In addition to Best Hair and Makeup, which was a foregone conclusion, the film received two further nominations in the acting categories. Everyone, naturally, is talking about Brendan Frasier, who’s up for Leading Actor and has already won several run-up awards. Even though, again, it’s a role that feels crafted to win Oscars, I can’t deny that Frasier does really well with it, by turns painful, hopeless, loving, and slyly funny. There are moments when the performance gets a little too overwrought and falls flat for me (honestly, this is true for pretty much all the actors,) but on the whole, I get why Frasier is garnering so much attention beyond the obvious aspects. Hong Chau got a Supporting Actress nomination as Liz, and she’s also excellent. From her first scene, it’s evident how much she cares about Charlie, how much she hates the way he’s hurting himself but doesn’t know how to get him to stop, and how she navigates helping in the small ways she can while also dealing with her own pain. Sadie Sink is great as Charlie’s daughter Ellie, and Samantha Morton appears briefly as Charlie’s ex/Ellie’s mom. I couldn’t figure out where I recognized Ty Simpkins, who plays a young door-to-door missionary longing to help Charlie—turns out he played Harley, the kid from Iron Man 3.

Warnings

Brief sexual content/references, language (including homophobic slurs and fatphobic insults,) drinking/drug use, strong thematic elements (including suicide and self-harm,) and an able-bodied actor playing a disabled character.