“this film will move you and haunt you“
“You don’t need explosions to create power. Just powerful characters and the excellence of actors who can deliver them.“
Con Nats
4 slices of Dominos
Charlie is a morbidly obese teacher, who eats a bucket of fried chicken for lunch, then a wank, and a pizza and bottle of soft drink each night for dinner. He’s unhappy, he’s dying and doesn’t really care about himself, but he does care. The last thing he wants to hear before he dies is his daughter’s essay about Moby Dick.
There are others who care about Charlie (Brendan Fraser). There’s his Asian friend Liz (Hong Chau) who comes in and chides him almost daily. There’s Thomas (Ty Simpkins) the missionary who stumbles in on Charlie during a heart attack who takes an interest. And there’s his daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), who hates him (as most 17 year olds do) but cares enough to take up his offer of money as long as she allows him to help her with her studies. He’s a very good English teacher who does all his teaching by Zoom, with his camera off.
This story follows Charlie over a week of his decaying life as he tries to reconnect with his daughter. His past and the source of Charlie’s depression is slowly revealed. It brings together the strings of his predicament and his pathos. It’s not too shocking by modern standards but still tragic and real. Any antipathy you feel against him slowly melts and the shocked looks on the faces of the pizza delivery kid and his students tells you how horrible he appears to others.
Self-loathing characters seems to be a feature of many Darren Aronofsky films (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) and I’ve always found him to be a little hysterical in his direction. This time he’s working with a theatre script and playwright Samuel D Hunter helped adapt it for the screen, so he’s limited in his ability to cut loose. It helps reign him in nicely and in fact, he’s filmed this in a 4:3 ratio, so you feel as trapped as Charlie (who never leaves home).
The casting is excellent and Brendan Fraser is already winning awards. He is superb in this and it’s by far his finest performance on film. It’s difficult to balance loathing and admiration and to take you from sympathy to empathy. Charlie is a complex character; on one hand he preaches freedom and honesty, while living in a self imposed prison and hiding from the world. Charlie can see the good in others but is giving up on himself. Try making sense of that. Fraser does. His scenes with Hong Chau crackle as they traverse the anger and love between them. Every character has their story fleshed out and there are no really minor roles, although Ellie isn’t very likeable. Even Sam Morton appears for one scene as his jilted ex-wife.
The script is like a theatre script: wordy and intelligent, especially the dialogue with Thomas over religion. It is also a little melodramatic, but we are watching a man in a slow suicide pact and he wants to say what he has to. It is a redemption tale.
Somehow, The Whale has missed out on a Best Film Oscar nomination while Fraser and Chau have picked up acting nominations. It’s a surprise, as this film will move you and haunt you for far longer than a fighter pilot ever will. You don’t need explosions to create power. Just powerful characters and the excellence of actors who can deliver them.
Con Nats, On The Screen
