Blair Loveday
The surrounding story of Brendan Fraser and the movie The Whale has been amazing.
At screenings of the movie he got such long standing ovations that he cried which shows how much heart he put into this role. Then he got the best actor Oscar for it to ice that cake off.
I have always liked Brendan Fraser, his role in Scrubs is beyond amazing, so to see him acting his heart out I was so down. And finally I have checked this masterpiece out.
The Whale follows an English teacher named Charlie.
Charlie is morbidly obese to a point where moving is incredibly difficult. He teaches online and claims his webcam doesn’t work, and when pizza is delivered he has it left at the door so he isn’t seen. One day he has a heart episode which causes his one friend Liz who is a nurse to realise he has all of a week to live.
Charlie says he can’t afford going to the hospital so poor Liz is just left to continue their routine.
During this week Charlie is visited by a christian missionary who decides he wants to save him.
It turns out that Charlie’s ex-boyfriend was from that church which caused his death, and the life spiral that resulted in the current state of his body. Liz, who was his brother, has less time for the missionary than Charlie.
As the movie progresses we consistently find out just how lovely of a man Charlie is as he is willing to give the time to everyone including his daughter.
It turns out he has been unable to contact his daughter Ellie for a long time due to her mother dealing with the break up really badly. Charlie convinces Ellie to stay for a bit by helping with some homework and bribing her. Ellie is a pretty shitty person, but Charlie is insistent she is a lovely girl. This is where I have covered a bunch of threads in the film, but if I say anything more I will spoil the whole thing.
There is so much to love about this movie.
The all round acting, the emotionally brutal story, it’s just fantastic. Almost the whole thing is set in Charlie’s house, which given his size is pretty damn small. To make it feel smaller the movie is filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio.
If you’re not sure what that means, think of the old CRT TV’s. So this results in black bars down the sides of the screen which is unusual for a new film. This is used to make Charlie’s world feel even smaller which weirdly works. I’m sure the movie would have worked just as well in widescreen, but for the art of it all I liked it.
Watch The Whale. It is an incredible movie that deserves every accolade it gets.
The whole cast is incredible, the characters built is incredible, and that ending was intense as hell. I swear I wasn’t choked up.
