The Cruel Spectacle of ‘The Whale’

“The Whale,” Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, is one you hope, desperately, will be seen by an audience that has the necessary cultural literacy, the empathy, to watch the story and recognize that the onscreen portrayal of fatness bears little resemblance to the lived experiences of fat people. It is a gratuitous, self-aggrandizing fiction at best.

The film should ask us to see Charlie, the protagonist played by Brendan Fraser, as a person, to understand his grief and mourn with him, to hope for him to pull his life together. But that’s not how the movie was filmed. Most audiences will see the spectacle of a 600-pound man unwilling to care for himself, grieving the loss of his partner who died by suicide, eager to die himself and using food as the means to that end. The disdain the filmmakers seem to have for their protagonist is constant, inescapable. It’s infuriating. To have all this onscreen talent and all these award-winning creators behind the camera, working to make an inhumane film about a very human being — what, exactly, is the point of that?

For most of its two-hour run time, “The Whale” is emotionally devastating. Charlie’s grief and inability to find the will to live are utterly crushing. The material circumstances of his life — teaching writing online; always hiding from his students by keeping his camera off; enduring the understandable fury of his teenage daughter, who simply wants to know why he abandoned her; shirking the concern of his best friend, who has already lost one beloved brother and can hardly bear to lose her last connection to him — are overwhelming and relentless, manipulative and pitiable. I suppose that’s the point of this particular adaptation of Sam Hunter’s play of the same name.

“The Whale” is assiduous about conveying its gravitas and self-importance. There is the austere title card and the dark and claustrophobic setting of a dank apartment; the formidable cast emotes solemnly but energetically. I didn’t know much about the film, but I did know that it was about a fat man seeking some kind of redemption and that it starred Mr. Fraser, one of my favorite actors. Even though he wore a fat suit for the role, a Hollywood practice I find abhorrent, I was willing to give the movie a chance because he has earned plenty of my good will.

Members of the small cast acquit themselves well enough with the material they’re given. Charlie is isolated and is reckoning with his mistakes as he dies of heart failure. This is not a subtle film. In his final days, he tries to reconcile with his estranged, irreverent daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). He is cared for by his best friend and deceased partner’s sister, Liz (Hong Chau), and the monotony of his life is interrupted by Thomas (Ty Simpkins) a misguided missionary who awkwardly inserts himself into Charlie’s last days.

Mr. Fraser brings pathos to this role, though I wish he had been given better material, more worthy of his talent. His performance makes him a strong contender for all the major awards, and that’s a shame — not because he doesn’t deserve them but because what’s also being rewarded is such a demeaning portrayal of a fat man. We’ll hear about how brave Mr. Fraser is for taking on a role like this, for wearing a fat suit, for being willing to embody so many people’s worst fears. Hollywood loves to reward actors who dare to take on roles that require them to abandon the good looks that enabled their careers.

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