Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” adapted from the play by Samuel D. Hunter (who also wrote the screenplay), about an obese man reckoning with his life over the course of a week, is a morally and emotionally messy film. It is so challenging to puzzle out the muddled messaging of this project that ultimately it begs the question: does our cinematic entertainment have to be cleanly comprehended? Is it possible to exist in an uncomfortable gray area (which is reflected even in the color palette of the dim apartment where the entirety of the film is set)?
This uneasiness is a natural extension of Aronofsky’s last film, 2017’s “Mother!”, which was an aggressively confrontational piece that employed Biblical archetypes and shocking violence in order to make a fist-pounding statement about climate catastrophe. “The Whale” isn’t nearly so emphatic, and is far more earnest (for better or for worse), but it slots neatly into Aronofsky’s interest in physical and emotional suffering and degradation as a means of spiritual transcendence (see also: “Requiem for a Dream,” “The Wrestler,” “Black Swan”).
In “The Whale,” Brendan Fraser plays Charlie, a morbidly obese online writing instructor confined to his apartment in what seems to be a dreary stretch of Idaho. Charlie is suffering from congestive heart failure, and over the course of a week, as his best friend Liz (Hong Chau) a nurse, implores, demands and shouts at him to seek medical attention, he reckons with some of the unfinished business of his life while committing a slow suicide. He reaches out to his estranged daughter, the prickly Ellie (Sadie Sink), and by extension, her mother, Mary (Samantha Morton). A young missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), keeps stopping by, hoping to save his soul.
