![]() ![]() It would be easy, and tempting, to dismiss it out of hand. The film sets out to repulse us, and it frequently succeeds. Rather than open up a stage-bound text, as a less confident film director might. ![]() ![]() The last visual shows the sun shining, the tide rising and falling, and a younger, slimmer version of the lead. A24’s drama The Whale on Saturday surpassed 10 million at the domestic box office, a notable milestone for an indie movie in the pandemic era. Hunter (who wrote the script), The Whale is an exercise in claustrophobia. Then there’s the airless, slightly unsavoury lighting and colour palette of Charlie’s living space, which looks like it was shot from the inside of a particularly fetid laundry basket. The movie version of The Whale ends with a breath, a bright light and a beach. The camera is positioned low as Charlie heaves himself to his feet, reducing this complex, wounded character to little more than a cascade of flesh. But at the same time he shoots Charlie in a way that accentuates the indignity of his mostly sofa-based existence. The latest trailer for 'The Whale,' starring Brendan Fraser in his comeback role, is here.A24 released the first footage of the actor and his costars in the drama on Nov. More, it’s due to the effortlessly duplicitous way the director pushes and pulls the audience of this story of grief and self-destruction, starring a fat-suited Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a chronically obese shut-in who is belatedly trying to rebuild his relationship with his estranged daughter.Īronofsky challenges us to see beyond our biases and pre-programmed ideas of attractiveness to find beauty in Charlie, in the warm, enveloping melody of his speaking voice, in his poetic, passionate soul. And not just because of the air of general clamminess that pervades this claustrophobic theatre adaptation (although if it were possible for a camera lens to sweat, then cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s would probably do so throughout). I t’s a slippery thing, the latest film from Darren Aronofsky. ![]()
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