The Whale Blu-ray Review
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 12, 2023
The 95th Academy Awards are scheduled to air in just a few hours as this review is being published, and many online data aggregators more or less
agree that Brendan Fraser is a near lock to win the Best Actor category for
The Whale. Anyone who has ever struggled with weight (and I
count myself among those ranks) might
shake their head in wonderment at the thought of actors
deliberately putting on pounds to essay a role, and while Fraser benefited from
both CGI and prosthetics to achieve the disturbing vision of a 600 pound English teacher named Charlie, as is quite evident from candid shots of the
actor taken both during production and after, he did in fact "help" things along with a bit of his own "padding", which one assumes is now going to
have come off courtesy of some strict dieting. Fraser's performance, along with those of Hong Chau (also Oscar nominated for this performance) and
Sadie Sink in particular, help this film to elide some at times clunky and overly theatrical writing (the project began life as a play, and playwright
Samuel D. Hunter wrote the adapted screenplay).
Charlie is a morbidly obese recluse living in a tiny apartment in northern Idaho (virtually the entire film takes place within the claustrophobic
confines
of Charlie's domicile, and the making of featurette included on this disc as a supplement details the challenging of keeping things "cinematic" within
such a confined environment). He teaches an online English course via a Zoom like interface, though he is careful to always keep the camera on his
laptop off, so as to not invite comments from his students about his appearance. Just the first of several frightening health scares suddenly erupts
when Charlie seems to be having a heart attack while "home alone", until a veritable Deus ex Machina knock at the door ushers in Thomas (Ty
Simpkins), a "door to door" missionary who is perhaps surprisingly (given this film's Idaho locale)
not a Mormon, though semi-hilariously
(at
least for those of us who grew up in that general vicinity), Charlie's estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) immediately thinks he
is LDS
when she finds out he's visiting her father to aid in his spiritual development.
The small cast is filled out mostly courtesy of Charlie's aide, Liz (Hong Chau), a nurse who it is ultimately revealed has a heartbreaking personal
connection to Charlie, and one that ties in to both Charlie's eating disorder, homosexuality
and the nearby "New Life" church that Thomas
is
proselytizing on behalf of. It's here that
The Whale probably most overtly reveals its stage bound genesis, as this intersection, while
dramatically potent, is also kind of incredible in the literal meaning of that word. The bulk of the film details Charlie's fitful attempts to reconnect
with
Ellie, whom he more or less abandoned when she was a little girl after Charlie left his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton) for a (male) student of his.
The personal relationships in the film, especially those between Charlie and Liz and Charlie and Ellie, often ring true, even if the overall context here
is a little wobbly at times. The ultimate connection between Charlie, Liz and Charlie's male partner is at the crux of a lot of the emotion of the film,
but the whole sidebar of a homophobic church in the neighborhood gives things a kind of odd angle that never really feels organically woven into
the story, despite the fact that Hunter attempts to tether Liz's backstory into the church. More contextually convincing is the fraught relationship
between Charlie and Ellie, and Fraser and Sink really play off of each other beautifully in several "two hander" scenes. Some of the supplements
seem to suggest that Ellie is some kind of "avenging angel" (and/or demon), but I'd argue the film is actually at least
relatively balanced
in portraying a teen girl who is obviously dealing with any number of "issues" (along with being estranged from Charlie, it turns out Mary is an
alcoholic), but who is trying to find her own way as best she can.
Ultimately, though, the film belongs to Fraser, and my personal hunch is he will indeed prevail at the Academy Awards festivities which are
scheduled to air in just a few hours as I'm typing this sentence. Fraser is unabashedly disturbing from a physical standpoint, but it's the sweetness
and vulnerability he brings to Charlie that really helps to bring the character fully alive. There have of course been complaints about Fraser donning
a "fat suit" to play a morbidly obese character, and evidently some have insisted a
real morbidly obese performer should have been hired
to play the role, which brings to mind a quote by an actor friend of mine who had been subject to "cancelling" due to a "questioned" performance of
his, where he responded, "As an actor, I promise to
never pretend to be something I'm not again". (That's a joke, for the humor
impaired.)
The film is also technically quite interesting, and in that aforementioned making of supplement included on this disc Darren Aronofsky and
cinematographer Matthew Libatique discuss some of the challenges in shooting in a small, cloistered space while at the same trying to keep things
visually interesting. Aronofsky overtly mentions "returning" to repeated uses of dollies, which help to keep the visuals kinetic, even if Charlie
himself is largely confined to sitting on a couch, unable to really move very freely.
The Whale Blu-ray, Video Quality
The Whale is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A24 with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. According to the
IMDb, Sony CineAlta cameras were utilized and the DI was finished at 4K. As can probably easily be made out in the screenshots I've uploaded to
accompany this review, this is an intentionally drab and often underlit presentation that is not exactly "eye candy", but which preserves typically
excellent detail levels throughout, at least when lighting conditions allow. The entire film has been graded somewhat unusually toward a kind of ochre
or peach tone, and that when combined with a noticeable dusting of digital grain, can occasionally mask fine detail levels, again especially in some of
the lower light situations. The film only
very rarely ventures outside of Charlie's apartment, and then only for a second or two, but detail
levels on things like Charlie's balding head or even some of the fabrics on his couch are precisely rendered. This is another Blu-ray from Lionsgate that
exhibits noticeable banding on the studio masthead at disc boot up, but I noticed no issues with the feature itself. My score is 4.25.
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