The Whale (Darren Aronofsky, 2022)

[Feego]

Mormons consider themselves Christians. The subtitle to the Book of Mormon is "Another Testament of Jesus Christ"

While Mormons consider themselves Christians, they are usually not recognized as such by other Christian religions for a number of reasons, chief among them being that Mormons do not believe in the holy trinity. They accept that Jesus Christ was a divine prophet, but they do not believe that he and God the father and the Holy Spirit are one and the same. I haven’t seen this film and can’t comment on how this works in context, but to twbb’s point, I can see how this would “other” the characters further because Mormons are indeed further alienated even among followers of Jesus.

[swo17]

True, though I should think that a lot of their other practices and beliefs would be a lot more alienating than the technicality of whether Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one being or three. That being said, I'm also thinking that none of those really come into play in this film or in the source material?

I do like davoarid's point that it would be very unnerving to have one missionary showing up somewhere alone. However suspicious a non-member might be, a church member would be downright scandalized.

Would the references to the Book of Mormon be off-putting if the film were set in Utah (or in that case, would their absence seem rather curious)? Is the film still set in Idaho, where 25% of residents are LDS?

[knives]

That last point I do think is a valuable one. As a prominent religious minority in the west, growing up in SoCal many of my friends and acquaintances were Mormons, a text making a particular point of them while being informative wouldn’t be alienating. Saying so would be a bit like saying Washington Heights set movie would be alienating for making characters Dominica rather than the more broadly known Puerto Rican.

[therewillbeblus]

No, not alienating to people from specific social contexts, but wider audiences ingesting the film across the country. I grew up in a non-religious household in a community that was predominately Jewish and was the only non-Jewish person I knew until I was in high school, with no exposure to Christianity within my social context- and yet, broadly speaking, I was aware of certain inclusive ideas of general “Christianity” that were relatable to other areas of life, as well as aware of more specific stigmas to identified denominations, including Mormonism. Again, I think broad is better here for the themes of the film, because of the way the religious ideas are utilized. But it would be interesting to hear alternative perspectives based on examples from the film’s contents itself. Curious if those pushing back have seen this yet

[swo17]

I haven't seen this yet but I intend to

[DarkImbecile]

Basically the fulfillment of every criticism — justified or otherwise — slung at Aronofsky over the course of his career, The Whale is just painfully wrongheaded in a way I couldn't excuse with even the most generous and forgiving of readings. As everyone notes, Brendan Fraser is still very good here as Charlie, the morbidly obese protagonist, and he and Hong Chau manage to ride the cliff's edge of overly theatrical hysterics that pretty much everyone else tumbles over; nearly every other aspect of the film from script to score managed to be deeply enervating at one point or another, if not consistently.

I'm a pretty solid supporter of Darren Aronofsky's maximalism — I even like chunks of Noah — because most of his films are built around a premise that can justify that kind aggressive visual stylization and the heightened performances he so often elicits. Even something more grounded like The Wrestler prominently features the theatrics and violence of professional wrestling, giving Aronofsky an appropriate outlet for those tendencies, where with this film he can't help but impose that sensationalism on Brendan Fraser eating a drawer full of candy bars or being seen by a delivery guy. Speaking of that other family-oriented drama in Aronofsky's filmography, I was skeptical of those who dismissed this film as a Wrestler retread, but the similarities go far deeper than the attempt to repair a father-daughter relationship into the structure of the storytelling.

While there were multiple points where I felt like the script and/or Aronofsky's approach to the material was painfully misguided, perhaps none struck a discordant note with me more than the final shot of the film:

Spoiler

As Charlie finally dies and is clearly indicated to transcend, whether to some sort of heaven or merely into a final firing of synapses, the image we see is of him at the beach with his wife and daughter — with no sign of the man for whom he left this family and whose death has driven him to eat himself to death in the first place. For all the meaning we're meant to invest in this unseen relationship, it approaches being a bizarre rejection of that momentous choice Charlie made for the final image to return him to a time when his life situation denied his sexuality.

Also, and this is in danger of coming off as snide or facetious when I really don't mean it to be, but was anyone else horrified at the thought that Charlie's final walk toward his daughter could have easily ended in his collapsing on his daughter, likely killing her? Or am I just a terrible person?

[soundchaser]

Re: your spoiler. No, you’re not alone.

[Kracker]

Finally watched this, and not surprising I found much of the criticism around this movie unfair. And odd, that after movies like Requiem For A Dream, this would be the Aronofsky film people found divisive and controversial but alas these are times we live in. It is interesting though, like that piece from Sean Dovonan, who thinks the movie discounts the fat gay male experience, specifically his own, ironically discounting the gay male experience of the writer, whose life was the basis for Charlie and who Sean fails to even mention, just because it doesn't line up enough with his own experience or accomplish the representation desired within this lone parable. Seriously, write your own movie instead of expecting someone else to tell your own story adequately.

There's other pieces from people who also seem to be rather new to Aronofsky's films and find his depictions of addictions gratuitously and exploitative by showing their honest horrible reality. Don't know what they were expecting when it came to that. Pretty sure if he treated them gently like they wanted, he would be accused of romanticizing them instead and writing pieces about how food addiction is a real danger and no joke.

But as these films go, The Whale isn't about being gay, or food addiction, or fat-shaming just because it uses it as the means to communicate a deeper message about human nature and behavior.

But immediate first impressions: Branden Fraser's heart-breaking performance indeed makes the actors category a blowout, there's just no lead actor last year that touches what he accomplishes. Samantha Morton was great in communicating how much her daughter had drained her without some long detailed monologue, she was almost a perfect compliment Fraser's character, complete with her own addictions. Sadie Sink character's winds up being an odd reversal of the film's "road to hell is paved with good intentions" theme. Hong Chu finally gets a worthy dramatic role as Charlie's nurse and also his enabler. Also found it odd how much the characters tolerated Thomas given how much grief his professed church put them through but it seems to support the film's theme about caring for others.

Overall, its a quaint little film compared to Darren's others, after all it is a play. It's not as much as a overwhelming spectacle as any of his other films, its extremely script and performance driven. More the latter over the former even though the real meat of this film is Samuel's script and play specifically what it tells us about how people tend to care in the wrong ways as well as the theme of honesty over eloquence. Aronofsky's job was simply supplying an actor who could play a terminal 600-lb man and could emote a lifetime of pain and regret enough to do the character justice. As a lifelong fan of Aronofsky ever since first seeing Pi and seeing how well received they've been, I'd find it bizarre that a film as simple as this would be this huge misfire people claim it is. 8/10

When it comes to the ending:

Spoiler

It was that ending that really drove home the comparison to The Wrestler, since its implied that the film's subject also dies at the end, but found it strange how Charlie essentially gets raptured after all the religious discussion that transpired. And yea, it wasn't lost on me that Charlie's partner was not in that final shot and felt that was set up with the bible verse that Thomas misinterpreted which implies that Charlie's misfortune stemmed from choosing Alan indeed but choosing him over his family, not god. I don't really feel like this supports the notion of him lying to himself by rejecting his sexuality but him simply making a choice of his own will that he honestly feels he should have. After all, it was impossible for him to have both his family and his lover, no matter what he had to repress one or the other.

[DarkImbecile]

As part of their promotional campaign for this, A24 is sponsoring a one-night only screening of a restoration of Pi in a handful of IMAX theaters on, of course, March 14th

The screening will also feature a Q&A with “Aronofsky, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, composer Clint Mansell, actor Sean Gullette, and other special guests”

[knives]

Nice to hear that Gullette is involved. Thought he and Aronofsky might hav head a tiff.

[aox]

Finally! I've been pining for Pi in 8K screened in IMAX.

[dekadetia]

Finally! I've been pining for Pi in 8K screened in IMAX.

Presumably they're still finishing in 4 or 6K, right?

[Farley Flavors]

Finally! I've been pining for Pi in 8K screened in IMAX.

Even the best laser-equipped IMAX theater is only 4K.

[Toland's Mitchell]

A quick observation about the date within this film: The Whale takes place in early-March; we see this from the calendar on Charlie's wall, and from Ellie's social media posts. Later, we see Charlie watching the news covering the primary elections. And I came to the thought the film was taking place in early-March of 2020, right before COVID shut everything down. That made some sense to me. It related to the chat between Charlie and Thomas about the bible and the apocalypse (which is silly in hindsight but we all remember the hysteria three years ago), and also provided another unstated reason for why Charlie refused to go to the hospital. But a few minutes later, I thought about it more and realized I was wrong. The primary election he was watching on TV were the GOP primaries (based on the candidates mentioned on the TV) and there was no GOP primary in 2020. The Whale actually takes place in March of 2016. Aronofsky was precise about that so he must've felt it was at least somewhat important. But now I'm lost as to why. It may be nothing, but any ideas?

Spoiler

As Charlie finally dies and is clearly indicated to transcend, whether to some sort of heaven or merely into a final firing of synapses, the image we see is of him at the beach with his wife and daughter — with no sign of the man for whom he left this family and whose death has driven him to eat himself to death in the first place. For all the meaning we're meant to invest in this unseen relationship, it approaches being a bizarre rejection of that momentous choice Charlie made for the final image to return him to a time when his life situation denied his sexuality.

Also, and this is in danger of coming off as snide or facetious when I really don't mean it to be, but was anyone else horrified at the thought that Charlie's final walk toward his daughter could have easily ended in his collapsing on his daughter, likely killing her? Or am I just a terrible person?

Spoiler

No you were not alone in that terrible thought, I immediately thought the same thing when I saw this film yesterday.

Anyway, I also find Charlie's final vision problematic. If these were his final images running through his head before his eternal sleep, then why couldn't they have a surreal dreamlike quality where he can simultaneously see his two greatest loves in life, his family and his male lover? Or at the very least, one right after the other? We understand they had to be mutually excluded in the real world, but certainly not in his head. Therefore, the film and/or Charlie seem to take sides with the family, which feels dishonest given that he abandoned them. It's one of several problems throughout the film that leaves holes in the backstories, or fails to make sense of them during the present five-day window in which the film takes place. The relationship between Charlie and Alan is the most egregious example. We learn from Liz that Alan committed suicide because he was torn between his sexuality and his religion (and by consequence, his father), which could have made an interesting exploration. But The Whale decided to take the family melodrama route, where the performers and the musical cues tell us (sometimes shouting) how we're supposed to feel without much standing. The performance are very good, but despite their best efforts, they cannot bury thin narratives and characterizations. This is an instance where I mostly agree with the Academy. Nominate a performance or two, but not the film, its director, nor its writer.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh man, if concerns with COVID were even remotely an influence in Charlie's behavior of refusing to go to the hospital, that would completely undermine the self-destructive themes of the film and reverse his entire characterization. 2016 was a pre-apocalyptic time for many Americans in hindsight, so it seems like an appropriate context for a biblically-obsessed auteur like Aronofsky to use and mold to whatever his next project was, even if its connective tissue isn't as on-the-nose as everything else in this overstated mess

[Toland's Mitchell]

Well my line of thinking wasn't about his own health, but instead that he didn't want to occupy space at a hospital when others needed it. But it doesn't matter anyway because the timing is wrong.

[therewillbeblus]

Interesting, that might've actually made the choice richer, though it would've split the characterization into two concrete parts (i.e. selflessness, self-destructiveness) that might've diluted one another where Charlie best exists as a broader, complex person making choices rooted in a less concrete mix of motives. Too bad every nook and cranny of the script is overemphasized, causing the play's strengths to work in constant friction with its weaknesses

[Kracker]

The reason why he didn't go to the hospital was because if he did, and without insurance, the medical bills would have wiped out all the money he saved for Ellie. That was his thinking.

And ultimately, it would only buy him a little more time. Charlie was too far gone, the health problems caused by the damage he did to his body would have just done him in later.

The primary election he was watching on TV were the GOP primaries (based on the candidates mentioned on the TV) and there was no GOP primary in 2020. The Whale actually takes place in March of 2016. Aronofsky was precise about that so he must've felt it was at least somewhat important. But now I'm lost as to why. It may be nothing, but any ideas?

It was a way to clarify that Charlie wasn't able to marry his partner because he died before same sex marriage was legal.

[therewillbeblus]

The reason why he didn't go to the hospital was because if he did, and without insurance, the medical bills would have wiped out all the money he saved for Ellie. That was his thinking.

And ultimately, it would only buy him a little more time. Charlie was too far gone, the underlying health problems caused by the damage he did to his body would have just done him in later.

Yeah, that's a part of it, but this is an entirely rational impression of a man who has clearly been primarily driven by emotions long before and during the events of the film. The impulsivity of his binging in response to emotional triggers is emphasized throughout. He and we can intellectualize rationales for his behavior, but the internal logic of his emotional insides (read: soul) is more of what the film is about, rather than the surfaces in externally communicated cognitive logic about why he's not going to the hospital, body image, etc., except when used as palpable consequences affecting his loved ones when clashing with the intention or value of his heart (read: soul, again)

[yoloswegmaster]

As part of their promotional campaign for this, A24 is sponsoring a one-night only screening of a restoration of Pi in a handful of IMAX theaters on, of course, March 14th

The screening will also feature a Q&A with “Aronofsky, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, composer Clint Mansell, actor Sean Gullette, and other special guests”

A24 will be releasing Pi on blu later this year. I'm actually kinda surprised he didn't license it to Janus/Criterion, especially when I recall him simping hard for Criterion to release one of his other films (I think it was for The Fountain).

[black&huge]

it was in fact The Fountain and he wanted them to release his director's cut of it

[PfR73]

The primary election he was watching on TV were the GOP primaries (based on the candidates mentioned on the TV) and there was no GOP primary in 2020. The Whale actually takes place in March of 2016. Aronofsky was precise about that so he must've felt it was at least somewhat important. But now I'm lost as to why. It may be nothing, but any ideas?

It was a way to clarify that Charlie wasn't able to marry his partner because he died before same sex marriage was legal.

2016 was a pre-apocalyptic time for many Americans in hindsight, so it seems like an appropriate context for a biblically-obsessed auteur like Aronofsky to use and mold to whatever his next project was, even if its connective tissue isn't as on-the-nose as everything else in this overstated mess

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/I ... m-20221208

Interviewer: So the play originally came out in 2012, but the film takes place around the 2016 election. What were your motivations in updating the play for that specific period in time?

Samuel D. Hunter: Well, I guess I wrote the play first on like 2009, 2010. So the play is basically set then. When we were talking, like that's a very specific thing. Even though it was simply the year that I wrote it, there was no meaning behind setting it in in 2010. So we were like, "Well, if it doesn't need to be set then, when does it wanna be set?" We thought like, "Is it contemporary?" But then it was like, well, no because then everybody would be wearing masks, especially Liz as a healthcare worker, and people would be talking about the pandemic, and it was just like, this is not that movie. So the more we talked about it, we really started to emerge about 2016 and specifically around the election, even though it's not a political commentary.

I do think that there's something about all of these characters are kind of on the precipice of something, you know what I mean? Like, Thomas comes in with all this end of times energy and Charlie's in his own version of end times and Ellie might be failing out of school, Liz's co-dependent behavior is kind of coming to a head. Everything is kind of on the precipice for these characters. It kind of felt nice to set it in a time where the country was on some huge precipice. I just really loved how like, when you hear that talk on the TV about the election, suddenly it's just like, the world gets so much bigger and you're like, "Oh, right." This is this tiny, tiny story that's happening in this vast, vast country that's about to really fundamentally change.

[knives]

So the play was described in the first post as "fiercely funny." Is any of that tone present in the film? Are reviewers missing it?

The last act which is absolutely hilarious, while also maintaining the emotional heights of the film. I think Morton’s character works as one of the better performances of the year in the context of bitter comedy. Even the famous pizza guzzle is funny for how it expresses the theme of punishment as a means to achieve of good. That said the theme is also where the film loses me as easily Aronofsky’s weakest film. I just don’t think he does realism nor Christianity well (it’s interesting that those two things are always tied together for him). This ended up being an okay film with some themes I dislike.

[therewillbeblus]

I need to hear a more fleshed out argument for how Morton's scene or the pizza guzzle can possibly be intended as anything other than sincerely tragic. The transparently genuine self-seriousness is more repulsive than any of the self-destructiveness

[knives]

I’m not sure if I could make an argument beyond I was laughing for reasons I assume were intentional rather than accidental on the part of the film.