The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser and directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a heart wrenching movie that explores the themes of addiction, selfishness, and the importance of truth. The film takes place mainly in Charlie's house, and follows his journey to reconnect with his daughter.

The movie focuses on Charlie's addiction to food, which, it seems, he uses as a coping mechanism to deal with his grief over the loss of his partner. As the story progresses, we see how this addiction is merely a side effect of heartache from the death of a lost loved one and depression from not being able to see or contact his daughter and it spirals worse and worse throughout his life’s progression.

The film explores the concept of addiction in a nuanced way, highlighting the ways in which it is a slow destruction of self. It is particularly disturbing for Charlie as it seems he is using it as a way to slowly commit suicide, although this is never explicitly confirmed, but it is what I derived.

To me, Charlie really feels like he is disconnected from the world and all that makes him happy, including his lost love and his daughter who despises him. My take on his eating disorder is that it was his momentary comfort, of course, to remedy some of life’s pain.

It was initially triggered when his partner committed suicide as they show pictures of him looking in better shape together with his partner before he ended his life. This is what the root source of pain is because of the permanent repercussions of his former partner's death.

The other critical repercussion is the fact that he left his wife and daughter to be with his new lover, who was a male student of his. This is the initial trigger of his daughter’s core hurt. She can’t forgive him for leaving her. This will forever be a tragic decision for him to make and one he feels he can reckon with, at least a little bit, by leaving his savings for her.

I think he is content in his life to subvert the pain of losing his boyfriend and daughter through overeating (his natural coping mechanism), and at the same time he both doesn’t want to live (go to the doctor) or lose the money he has saved that he thinks he can at least “do something good with” by leaving it for his daughter. The line of emotional trauma and tragic logic makes sense to me here and it makes for a compelling story.

“I need to know that I have done one thing right in my life,” Charlie says as he sobs, referring to his daughter.

The movie does an excellent job of incorporating different factions of the world despite mainly taking place within Charlie’s apartment, which is dirty and pretty disgusting, and had me wondering how foul it must have smelt. The central location gets somewhat bothersome for me and I typically don’t like movies like this. I find that they are often found in adaptations of plays to film.

Although, it did bother me that the film was only at Charlie’s house, I will say that this play adaptation was better than many others when it comes to the central location. They did a decent job of entering new scenarios and also shots in certain rooms of the house, or the porch, that made it feel like a bigger world.

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Including Charlie's online English class that he teaches into the narrative was a positive way to expand the story and “world build” outside of his apartment. It adds depth to Charlie's character and was the most interesting subplot in my opinion.

The acting in the movie is strong, with Brendan Fraser delivering a standout performance both visually and emotionally. The rest of the cast is solid, but in my opinion were victims of what felt like, to me, unrealistic character arrivals to the house at precise times. Their convos were a little bit too to the point and they showed up at the exact moment the plot needed them too.

I didn’t like the pizza boy element for example. Or the fact that the entire life story of the religious kid was played out through his conversations in this random living room. How often would that ever happen in real life? People usually don’t say exactly what they are thinking.

One of the most powerful moments in the movie is the essay that Charlie's daughter writes. The writers of the movie have created a fictional essay that has a lot of meaning behind it, and it's believable that an eight-year-old could have written it. The essay speaks to the importance of truth, a theme that runs throughout the movie.

The film is skillfully directed by Darren Aronofsky and features a standout performance from Brendan Fraser that is definitely worthy of an Oscar. While the arrival of certain characters at specific times may feel unrealistic, the film remains a compelling story of one man's journey to reconnect with what matters most in his life. I rate it a 7.7 out of 10.

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