The Whale

A24 | Release Date: December 9, 2022

7.4	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 180 Ratings

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User Reviews

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praneelrajaDec 24, 2022

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was hoping it would be a good film. The film wasted my time. To put it short the Brendon does not learn his lesson and ends up dying.… Expand

2 of 10 users found this helpful28

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swiftouchFeb 22, 2023

So are there people out there that have so much money they make movies that have no chance at all at recovering the production cost? It's like watching an extended episode of my 600 lb life, only darker and more depressing. Lost a lot ofSo are there people out there that have so much money they make movies that have no chance at all at recovering the production cost? It's like watching an extended episode of my 600 lb life, only darker and more depressing. Lost a lot of respect for BF for even staring in it. Was this supposed to be his big comeback validation movie? Actors should avoid Aronofsky at all costs.… Expand

1 of 5 users found this helpful14

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michael27_2Dec 29, 2022

Sad. Dark. Depressing Homosexuality Aggressive people
Stay away. Does not worth your money

1 of 7 users found this helpful16

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MarkoDJan 20, 2023

Not for me. Ba acting, directing and writing. Pretty much boring. But that is just my opinion

1 of 8 users found this helpful17

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raporgiFeb 22, 2023

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A vomit inducing hellscape into the misery obsessed hack director's disgusting fantasies. If you like watching a formerly handsome actor at his lowest this is the movie for you. Its another one of those loser movies that pops up every couple of years like "Jeff who lives at home", "C&ck" etc. Darren Arnofsky makes a movie about a enormously obese gay man who masturbates furiously to gay porn. Somehow he turns this floater into "Finding Forrester" for gay fat people. Darren needs to commit himself to an asylum or confine himself to a monastery to atone for his various crimes against cinema and the audience.… Expand

0 of 8 users found this helpful08

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HonestReviews66Jul 20, 2023

Gay, fat person leaves his wife and kids for an asian man. Eats as much as possible and lies to the sister of his now dead boyfriend about being broke so she helps him for free, so that he can give all his money to his drug-addicted, angry,Gay, fat person leaves his wife and kids for an asian man. Eats as much as possible and lies to the sister of his now dead boyfriend about being broke so she helps him for free, so that he can give all his money to his drug-addicted, angry, high-school-dropout daughter, who he's never seen.

And yet he's the hero of the movie.

Welcome to the left wing, ladies and gentlemen.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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JCHarvardMar 21, 2023

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. There are way too many faults in the logic of this film’s themes & characterizations to discuss, even trying to forget the blatantly gratuitous wallowing in obese grotesquery & pointlessly incessant self-loathing and self-pity displayed by every character. What’s Charlie’s motivation? He longs to finally see & interact with his daughter, Ellie, but wants to die as soon as possible. Why? All the talk of "honesty" & goodness, yet why does he equate his salvation with such a crassly materialistic deed as bequeathing $120K to this ungrateful daughter?

But Ellie is unremittingly awful, not just to herself & her father, but EVERYONE. Sink’s interpretation takes it far beyond the cynical teen cliché. Her jaded, anti-social cruelty borders on the psychopathic, which is apparent to all but Charlie, who maintains a delusional view of his Ellie’s “amazingness”? After knocking out her father with Ambien, Ellie maliciously betrays the confidence of a boy she apparently just befriended. Why? Ironically, Charlie, again delusional, interprets this as Ellie’s attempt to “save” the boy, after the betrayal inadvertently ends happily for him. His obsession with the atrocious Ellie is nauseatingly pathetic: he even gushes when he pretentiously perceives her misanthropic scribbling as a “haiku”.

However, the film’s biggest flaw is the entire Moby Dick conceit, a facile, symbolic equation of Ahab’s quest with Charles’ mission to save his daughter: Ellie as Moby Dick, angrily crashing into the Pequod of her colossal father’s bulwark. However, do we really need Moby Dick to facilitate this hackneyed metaphor? There is absolutely NO convincing or worthy purpose for pompously appropriating Moby Dick’s imagery in this film at all (while ignoring its themes of fate versus self-determination). Worse, Charlie endlessly repeats Ellie’s childish, non-interpretation of Melville’s novel, as if it were a precious, life-affirming litany. Ellie’s “essay” is no more perceptive than her damning “haiku” opus: in both she is asserting that there is essentially no point in anything, which presumably includes writing Moby Dick in the first place, because it’s all just a distraction from simply “being”(?). Behold, Honesty in all its banality.

Unfortunately, the film distracts us with morbid obesity, Moby Dick & a futile family reunion, when there is a more profound & sadder subject: Charlie’s past relationship with his lost lover Alan. The deeper tragedy is neatly encapsulated when Thomas confronts Charlie to joyfully preach that he can be “saved” when he dies, as the sins of the” flesh”, i.e. Charlie’s homosexuality, will be forgiven because he has a good heart beneath all that flesh. Charlie rejects this Last Judgement bombast that impugns what he is & what he loved, but is nonetheless forgivingly tolerant of Thomas’ insensitivity, given its sincerity.

However, Charlie also discovers that Thomas’ unwelcome revelation comes after his reading highlighted verses in Alan’s old bible. We realize at this moment what Charlie probably already knew but was striving to suppress: that Alan was tormented with guilt about his homosexual affair with him. Charlie cannot accept the fact that religious dogma had created a schism in Alan’s bond with him; that there was anything but pure honesty & happiness in their love. Is guilt over this star-crossed romance the genuine root of Charlie’s search for salvation? Despite the clarity of this moment, Charlie, & apparently the film makers, quickly turn away, preferring illusion & heartwarming platitudes over unpleasant truths.

The absurdity is extended when Charlie obscenely implores his students to send him something that’s “honest” (as opposed to well-crafted & showing that they’ve learned something). He is foolishly ecstatic at the blatantly pathetic results. There is no expected epiphany – do the film makers presume the audience shares Charlie’s ludicrous enthusiasm? Most depressing is a student’s cynically “honest” confession: “I’m tired of being told that I have promise”. How Charlie is unable to discover an echo of this in his own assessment of his daughter, i.e. a direct reflection of his own worshipful misbelief in Ellie's “greatness” & his imagined redemption, is the real tragedy unwittingly realized by the film’s creators.

Perhaps “honesty” is really Charlie’s Moby Dick. Ironically, his pursuit of it merely sucks Charlie down into a pathetic maelstrom of self-deception instead. The thoughtful viewer eventually realizes that genuine “honesty” implies some form of profound human insight. Regardless of whether Charlie has discovered the truth or not, he is given a finale that rewards him with pure fantasy. The film leaves us with nothing more than an insipid coda, devoid of recognition or proper salvation – that & an empty, disgusting fat suit.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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BLADELINGMar 26, 2023

Movie with few ideas, laid out in a confusing way. Perhaps it wanted to communicate too many things, with too few characters. I don't know. Some points are on the threshold of inciting hatred. Moving moments are there but they are veryMovie with few ideas, laid out in a confusing way. Perhaps it wanted to communicate too many things, with too few characters. I don't know. Some points are on the threshold of inciting hatred. Moving moments are there but they are very schoolboyish, so short, leaves nothing in the end. The acting is also very poor; it seems that the main character was constantly waiting for nods of assent from the director.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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Mauro_LanariApr 22, 2023

(Mauro Lanari)
Blackmail and manipulative theater pièce, further weighed down by a quintal of prosthetics and even more spiritually sick than "The Fountain" [2006]. Another crap of the couple Aronofsky and A24.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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