The Whale
A24 | Release Date: December 9, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 57 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
23
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 17, 2023
The film sets out to repulse us, and it frequently succeeds. It would be easy, and tempting, to dismiss it out of hand. But that would be to disregard its redeeming strength – the authentically knotty characters and the performances that inhabit them. Read full review
60
EmpireSophie ButcherJan 30, 2023
Neither a great step forward for fat acceptance nor a damning blow against it, The Whale is best appreciated as a moving, stripped-back character study, with a stunning lead performance. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 5, 2022
Here, in short, is a self-regarding drama of self-loathing: hardly the most appetizing prospect. If it proves nonetheless to be stirringly watchable, we have Brendan Fraser to thank. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 26, 2022
While the film is determined to live in the pain felt and lobbed at its main character, there are moments of gentle vulnerability and contemplation in its exploration of guilt, redemption, grief, and trauma. Read full review
60
BBCNicholas BarberSep 5, 2022
The Whale retains the pacing, structure and conventions of a solid but clichéd melodrama. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 4, 2022
Most of The Whale simply isn’t as good as Brendan Fraser’s performance. For what he brings off, though, it deserves to be seen. Read full review
60
SlashfilmMarshall ShafferSep 4, 2022
The Whale" stays too intellectual in its exploration of the physical and spiritual dimensions of redemption to and from bodily captivity. This comes at the expense of the director's strengths in the visceral realm. It restricts what could have been a truly great comeback performance from Brendan Fraser into being merely a good one. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangDec 29, 2022
When the camera looks at Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” what does it see? I think it sees a good actor giving a well-meaning, unevenly directed and often touching performance in a movie that strives to wrest something raw and truthful from a story that’s all bald contrivances, technological as well as melodramatic. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 20, 2022
I love what The Whale is doing for Fraser’s career. But not since John Wells blanded out the movie version of “August: Osage County” has a well-regarded play looked quite so at sea on screen. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedDec 12, 2022
The Whale has moments that touch the heart and passages that engage the mind, but the insufferable parallels it constantly draws between Charlie’s obesity and Moby Dick, Charlie’s favorite book, may have worked better in the stage play by Samuel D. Hunter than they do in his screen adaptation, where they merely ring false and drag the pace to a crawl. Read full review
50
CNNBrian LowryDec 9, 2022
The love showered on Brendan Fraser out of film festivals inflates expectations for “The Whale” wildly out of proportion, in a movie based on a play that occurs almost entirely within a lone apartment. Weighted down not by its morbidly obese protagonist but rather its stick-thin supporting players, Fraser deserves praise for his buried-under-makeup performance, but that’s not enough to keep the movie afloat. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlDec 8, 2022
The Whale’s raison d’etre seems to be about being the engine driving Fraser’s long-awaited resurgence. Beyond that there’s nothing much to see. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 6, 2022
The cynic in me believes this movie may have been constructed primarily for end-of-the-year plaudits because there doesn’t seem to be another compelling reason for it to exist. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredTricia GilbrideNov 8, 2022
The Whale is a frustrating watch as Aronofsky doesn’t seem to trust the actors or the audience, squashing the potential to tell an intriguing story. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 12, 2022
Here it often feels clumsy and maddeningly inconsistent, stranding Fraser in a melodrama undeserving of his lovely, unshowy performance. Whatever he wins for The Whale — and early prizes have already come — he deserves. The rest is just chum. Read full review
42
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 13, 2022
The direction suffers because Aronofsky is so enthralled with the grotesque potential of the body at the heart of his film that he’s often unable to focus on anything else. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfDec 19, 2022
Fraser often brings a warmth to Charlie that the film desperately needs, but his positivity is only an ember in a fire dying in the pouring rain. Read full review
40
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganDec 12, 2022
Despite Fraser donning anywhere between 50 and 300 pounds of prosthetic fat for his role, Charlie lacks a fleshed-out interiority that, unfortunately, reflects Hunter’s original material. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 9, 2022
The Whale knows it has a dynamo at its core, yet still keeps trying to prove to you it’s a substantial, significant statement. It can’t stop itself from being crushed under its own symbolic and sensationalist weight. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 9, 2022
As an exploration of — and argument for — the power of human sympathy, The Whale is undone by simplistic psychologizing and intellectual fuzziness. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensDec 1, 2022
Fraser’s all-in commitment to playing Charlie—300-pound fatsuit and all—put me in mind of Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in Joker, an act of faith so complete it managed to be the only transcendent element of a thuddingly bad movie. But Fraser’s beautifully judged performance isn’t enough to save this abject wallow through a mire of maudlin clichés about trauma and redemption. Read full review
40
PolygonKatie RifeSep 13, 2022
In The Whale, Aronofsky posits his sadism as an intellectual experiment, challenging viewers to find the humanity buried under Charlie’s thick layers of fat. That’s not as benevolent of a premise as he seems to think it is. It proceeds from the assumption that a 600-pound man is inherently unlovable. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 4, 2022
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. Read full review
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