By Jeffrey Sipe and Nina Rodriguez
“The Whale” Brendan Frasers’ 600-pound portrait of an estranged father is the safest Oscar bet.
February is awards season and we’re thrilled to finally be able to watch on the big screen the film that has put Brendan Fraser back on the map with wins at both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. He has followed up those wins with a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actor.
Academy Award nominee (for “Black Swan”) Aronofsky claims to have spent a decade searching for the right actor for the lead. It was, he said, the hardest part of making the film which premiered to rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival in the fall.
A surprisingly faithful adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s acclaimed play of the same title, which Hunter also scripted for the screen, provides the ideal platform for outstanding performances and proves to be a strong comeback project for 90s teen star Fraser (“The Mummy,” “George of the Jungle”) who had been absent from the big screen for some time. Now, Fraser is back to teach us a lesson in empathy and humanity through his portrayal of a lonely and severely obese English teacher in his small apartment from which the film, shot in 4:3 format, comes out as little as its protagonist.
In the cheerful and secure tone of a writing professor, Charlie teaches his students online about the importance of honesty while hiding himself behind the safety of a supposedly broken webcam.
Having “let it get out of control” following his partner’s suicide, Charlie has lost the will to leave his small Idaho apartment as well as the ability to do so by becoming morbidly obese.
At 600 pounds and with a blood pressure of 238-134, he literally has days to live but it’s not until he almost dies of a heart attack in the film’s opening scene that he realizes he has one last chance to redeem himself as a father before he dies. He tries to reconnect with his teenage daughter Ellie, whom he hasn’t seen in years after abandoning his family for a male student, and make sure she is okay saying, “I need to know that I have done one thing right with my life.”
Sadie Sink of “Stranger Things” fame co-stars as Charlies’ estranged and resentful teenage daughter, while Hong Chau’s earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a caregiver in the movie.
The film focuses on its monstrous protagonist as well as exploiting a certain voyeurism. Yet Fraser embodies a character so optimistic, caring, intelligent, kind, and deeply empathetic that he manages to turn this film into a lesson in humanism.
“The Whale” has been riding a wave of warm sentiment at festivals across the world already winning Fraser an award at the Toronto Film Festival. The latest A24 release will premiere in Mexico at theaters on February 9 and will be screening at Compartimento Cinematografico in San Miguel de Allende starting on opening day.
