The Whale

It's film festival season, which means we're hearing a lot about the hottest films that are likely to take home awards gold in the coming months.

“The Whale can, for much of its running time, feel tonally muddled. A24 has global distribution rights for The Whale. The Whale is an adaptation of Samuel D. That seemed fitting and poetic and practical to me, all at once.” Fraser told the outlet. While Fraser has acted in plenty of projects over the past years, many are calling The Whale the actor’s comeback as he gives a potentially career-defining performance. Characters give speeches about religion, and they deliver blunt passages of exposition that can feel awkward,” Bilge Ebiri from So far it’s tracking favourably with critics and sits at 85% on It’s film festival season, which means we’re hearing a lot about the hottest films that are likely to take home awards gold in the coming months. However, perhaps none is getting more talk than Brendan Fraser’s The Whale. One of the massive drawcards of The Whale is Brendan Fraser in the lead role of Charlie. [THR’s review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-whale-brendan-fraser-darren-aronofsky-1235212102/) of the film says “in a film about salvation, it’s the inextinguishable humanity of Fraser’s performance that floors you.” What is the plot of The Whale?

Director Darren Aronofsky and his star, Brendan Fraser, aim for empathy but come up short.

Here’s Charlie, keening and pleading behind a pane of glass for all of us to sigh and pout and gawk at, before moving on to the next fleeting curiosity. (Again, I see little empathy in the way this scene is framed and choreographed.) Thomas, seeing this heaving totem of misery, wants to save the dying Charlie’s soul, a witless effort toward a man who feels he’s past redemption—spiritually, morally, physically. This is a mighty act of becoming, the film seems to insist—and also one of empathy. But what’s expressed instead is a kind of leering horror, a portrait of a man gone to catastrophic ruin so that we, in the audience, may tap into our nobler, higher minds and see the worthy human being beneath the frightful exterior. Hunter’s 2012 play, The Whale is a story of a morbidly obese man, Charlie (Brendan Fraser), living out what might be his last days as his heart falters and his mind is lost to regret. And now there is The Whale, a lugubrious chamber drama that premiered here at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday.

In Darren Aronofsky's “The Whale,” the onetime leading hunk is earning Oscar chatter for his role as a 600-pound recluse, though the emotional actor is ...

It was clear from the supportive applause at the news conference that people were rooting for the actor, and that personal narrative of a career comeback combined with a showy role could take Fraser to the front of the pack. “I needed to learn to move in a new way,” Fraser said. “I looked different in those days,” he said. But when he was asked about that buzz and what it meant for the future of his career, Fraser said softly that it remained to be seen. And I think that is Charlie.” “It just didn’t move me, it didn’t feel right.” “Thank you for the warm reception,” Fraser said. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, just as you would feel stepping off the boat onto the dock here in Venice.” [Hong Chau](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/movies/hong-chau-downsizing-stereotyping.html)) warns Charlie that his blood pressure is so severe that if he doesn’t change his ways or go to a hospital, he’ll almost certainly die. And whenever the clearly emotional Fraser managed to make it to the end of a statement without his eyes filling with tears, the room full of journalists burst into encouraging applause. Stories like this are possible because of our deep commitment to original reporting, produced by a global staff of over 1,700 journalists who have all dedicated themselves to helping you understand the world. Aronofsky wanted to mount the movie for years but could never land on the right lead.

Darren Aronofsky's new film stars Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese professor. It's hard to imagine anyone being as captivating in the role, ...

The Whale is a kind of companion piece to the director's 2008 hit, The Wrestler (although, unusually for Aronofsky, he didn't write either of them), in that it involves a man with an estranged daughter, a heart condition, and a body he has pushed to painfully unhealthy extremes. Fraser richly deserves to be nominated for a best actor Oscar, and if that doesn't happen, I won't just eat my hat, I'll eat as many pizzas and cheese-and-meatball sandwiches as Charlie gets through in the film. For a film that opens with a 40-stone man suffering chest spasms after masturbating to online pornography, The Whale turns out to be disappointingly stodgy and sentimental. (One of Charlie's favourite books is Moby Dick, so the title isn't just a reference to his size.) It's rare to see prosthetic make-up on this scale outside of a body-horror movie, but it's so well done that the viewer comes to accept it within minutes. But all Charlie cares about is talking to Ellie (Sadie Sink), the 17-year-old daughter he hasn't seen since he left her and her mother (Samantha Morton) eight years earlier. The reason for this shyness is that he has been depressed since the suicide of his lover, several years ago, and he has kept eating to the point where he is morbidly obese.

Venice film festival: It's hard to feel much sympathy for Brendan Fraser's morbidly obese English teacher in this much anticipated but disappointing return ...

Fraser does an honest job in the role of Charlie, and Hong Chau brings a welcome fierceness and sinew to the drama, but this sucrose film is very underpowered. Alongside it all, there is Charlie’s love of literature, especially Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Charlie is glumly aware that he is the whale, the huge bloated entity that no one wants to hunt down or obsess over or even think about at all. He claims to the group that his laptop camera isn’t working, which is why the square on the screen where his face should be is blank.

At its Venice world premiere, Darren Aronofsky's 'The Whale' received a seven-minute standing ovation; star Brendan Fraser was visibly moved.

In that process, he’s on his journey of salvation.” Star [Brendan Fraser](https://deadline.com/tag/brendan-fraser/) was visibly moved as he was embraced by his director while extended applause rang throughout the auditorium. makes adjectives such as ‘brave’ and ‘fearless’ seem almost meaningless” and said The Whale is “cutting the line to put a never-better Brendan Fraser at the front of the Best Actor race.”

Venice, Italy (AP) -- Brendan Fraser is having a moment at the Venice International Film Festival.

A state conservation regulator has urged whale-watchers to keep their distance or risk hefty fines, prompted by a spike in social media videos featuring ...

She encouraged the public to enjoy the beauty of a whale sighting, but "enjoy them from a distance". "If they do have a calf with them, the mother will try to get away and that will put pressure on the calf to keep up with their mum, and that will exhaust the calf," she said. If whale watchers flout the rules, it can cause stress for the animals and a risk of collision, Ms Farrell said.

Chair Ian Wiese said GMR aimed to achieve a clearer picture of the number of migrating whales passing Cape Naturaliste, and how many go into Geographe Bay on ...

Mr Wiese said the monitoring sites would be at Bunker Bay on the Geographe Bay side of the Cape and 'The Other Side of the Moon' carpark via a 2WD road on the west side of the Cape. "This new research will compliment whale research projects in the South West, and add to our knowledge bank about the whale migration," Mr Wiese said. Geographe Marine Research (GMR)has announced a new project to document the size of the whale migration along the South West Coast this spring.

Darren Aronofsky seamlessly adapts Samuel L. Hunter's play but can't transcend the play's problems.

Charlie has a friend of sorts, Liz (Hong Chau), who happens to be a nurse, and when she comes over and learns that his blood pressure is in the 240/130 range, she declares it an emergency situation. The movie carries us along, tethering the audience to Fraser’s intensely lived-in and touching performance, yet the more it goes on the more its drama is interlaced with nagging contrivances, like the whole issue of why this father and daughter were ever so separated from each other. If only the rest of the movie were that convincing! In case there is any doubt he needs saving, “The Whale” quickly establishes that he’s an addict living a life of isolated misery and self-disgust, scarfing away his despair (at various points we see him going at a bucket of fried chicken, a drawer full of candy, and voluminous take-out pizzas from Gambino’s, all of which is rather sad to behold). But a couple of other characters enter the movie — and when Ellie (Sadie Sink), Charlie’s 17-year-old daughter, shows up, we notice that she has a really spiky and abrasive personality. And in “ [The Whale](https://variety.com/t/the-whale/),” directed by [Darren Aronofsky](https://variety.com/t/darren-aronofsky/) (who shepherded Rourke’s return in “The Wrestler”), Fraser is a better actor — slyer, subtler, more haunting — than he has ever been. Andy became the love of Charlie’s life, so he left the life he had behind. He’s gentle and spry, with a quick temperament — you might even say there’s something light about him — and this allows us, from the start, to see the man buried in the fat. [Brendan Fraser](https://variety.com/t/brendan-fraser/) — not that he ever really went away — has been a reminder of how much affection so many of us had for him back in the ’90s, when he had his moment in movies like “School Ties” and “Encino Man” and “Gods and Monsters” and “The Mummy.” Yet let’s be honest: This is not the comeback of John Travolta or Mickey Rourke. It’s hard not to notice that Liz, given how much she’s taking care of Charlie, has a spiky and rather abrasive personality. The actor sinks himself into that body, so that even as we’re gawking at a fellow the size of Jabba the Hutt we register the familiar soulful look in the eye, the distended remnants of the Fraser handsomeness. Fraser has been outfitted with a digital fat suit (the effects that bulk him up are a blend of prosthetics and CGI), and the result is that we see someone who looks at home in his flesh.

Darren Aronofsky's The Whale fails Brendan Fraser, saddling him with a reductive role, that never moves beyond the closed-circuit claptrap.

The Whale does not engage outside of the known narrative of the actor in the film — it’s his comeback! (Reminder: the character is physically introduced through masturbation which signals the desire to shock with his body, right from the get, something opposite of the tear-drenched ending and partially why the ending doesn’t feel earned to me). He has a set routine, which includes regular visits from his caretaker, who has ties to his past (Hong Chau), and Dan, the pizza delivery guy who follows the regular instructions of delivery — leave on the ledge, money is in the mailbox. Morton, too, was more of a mainstay in the early 2000s and has faded into lesser roles. The Whale is Fraser’s first leading role in a theatrical movie in a decade. Therein lies part of the problem of The Whale, the main character is not a vessel for his own journey but for a secondary character, and, by extension, the audience.

Brendan Fraser attends "The Whale" & "Filming Italy Best Movie Achievement Award" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4 in ...

[According to Variety, ](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/brendan-fraser-the-whale-weight-prosthetics-venice-1235359484/) "The Mummy" star is being touted as a serious Oscars contender with his portrayal in the drama. [his performance in "The Whale," ](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/entertainment/brendan-fraser-the-whale/index.html)

Body horror takes a new form in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, which chronicles the long, slow suicide of a morbidly obese man with pitiless candour but an ...

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Millennial fave Brendan Fraser, who seemingly disappeared in the 2010s, makes a belated career comeback in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. The movie may prove ...

In the wake of the profile came a groundswell of solidarity for the star who once dominated our childhoods. In a 2018 interview [with GQ](https://www.gq.com/story/what-ever-happened-to-brendan-fraser), he revealed all: his self-worth plummeted in the wake of an alleged sexual assault in 2003, followed by an aching sense of disillusionment. [Mummy](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-mummy-tom-cruise) trilogy, for one, and starred in such family rental favourites as George of the Jungle. It’s true that this is the sort of thing, where an actor eschews vanity for a boatload of makeup and prosthetics, that voting bodies love: just look at Gary Oldman’s wobbly Churchill facsimile in The Darkest Hour, or even Eddie Redmayne’s controversial take on a trans woman in The Danish Girl. But this was as much a display of collective relief as it was the product of catharsis. It seemed as though he’d waited for years, not so much for the recognition as to be vindicated; truthfully, he has.

Here at The A.V. Club, we know that there's nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a ...

[groped by former Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk](https://www.avclub.com/brendan-fraser-says-he-was-groped-by-ex-hfpa-president-1823237740), and believes that the fallout from that interaction left him all but blacklisted for over a decade. I wanted to know what I was capable of.” That’s the start of an Oscar campaign if we’ve ever heard one. On Sunday night, Darren Aronofsky’s new film The Whale premiered in Venice, where it received a six-minute standing ovation. Now, there is new clapping to talk about and it may even move you (not clickbait!). The actor told Club, we know that there’s nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a European film festival.

The Whale premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, so what are critics saying about Brendan Fraser's big comeback?

[Brendan Fraser and his reintroduction to Hollywood](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/brendan-fraser-explains-why-darren-aronofskys-the-whale-was-perfect-for-his-reintroduction-into-hollywood) via this movie, so it will definitely be interesting to see what recognition comes from it. The critic says: So let’s get to the reviews, starting with [Games Radar+](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-whale-review/)’s Jane Crowther. From the review: The movie reportedly received a [The Whale was already generating Oscar buzz](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/way-too-early-2023-best-picture-predictions).

Actor Brendan Fraser received a six-minute standing ovation Sunday night at the Venice Film Festival, after making a comeback to the profession following ...

Dude had a super unfair shake in Hollywood, but now it's (hopefully) coming around and he's going to get his due," Fraser had breakout roles in George of the Jungle (1997) and The Mummy (1999). Rooting for all your success brother and congrats to my bud Darren Aronofsky.— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) He underwent a laminectomy (a procedure to remove vertebrae from the spine), a partial knee replacement and vocal cord repair, "Welcome back Brendan Fraser. He supported me coming into his Mummy Returns franchise for my first ever role, which kicked off my Hollywood career.

The 2022 Venice Film Festival is halfway through its run and, as expected, the movie event has brought together a slate of titles that have become this ...

The trailer for the movie is yet to be released. Clearly moved and trying to fight back tears, Fraser does an exaggerated bow and prepares to exit the theater, but is prompted to stay due to the continuous roar of applause. The 2022 Venice Film Festival is halfway through its run and, as expected, the movie event has brought together a slate of titles that have become this year’s standouts, and we’ll certainly hear from them in the months to come.