The Whale

If the Sunday night world premiere of “The Whale” at the Venice Film Festival is any indication, Brendan Fraser's return to Hollywood will be met with ...

“The Whale” marks another buzzy Venice premiere for Aronofsky, who has a rich history with the prestigious festival. “Black Swan” was one of the big hits of the 2010 Venice Film Festival — and won Mila Kunis an emerging actor prize — while “mother!” was all anyone could talk about at the 2017 fest. “The Whale” stars Fraser as a man living with severe obesity who struggles to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter, played by “Stranger Things” breakout Sadie Sink. To play the lead character in the film, Fraser wore a prosthetic suit that added anywhere from 50 to 300 pounds given the scene. Fraser hugged Aronofsky several during the ovation. Among those spotted inside the Sala Grande Theatre were Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Nick Kroll and Hillary Clinton staffer Huma Abedin, who was seated a few rows behind Fraser and shed as many tears as he did.

Aronofsky has been trying to make 'The Whale' for about 10 years. Getty Images Fraser plays Charlie, a reclusive English teacher with a kind soul who weighs ...

"The last few years, so many of us have lost so much. "His superpower is to see the good in others and bring that out of them." "I thought the only way I can do it is if I write it from a profoundly place of love and empathy. "For someone like Charlie to see that there's good in someone like Ellie, it's throwing her for a loop." In the rough cut, Aronofsky said he was relieved to find that it didn't feel claustrophobic. But he's mostly just glad to be back with his first film since 2017's "Mother!" He learned long ago on 1998's "Pi" that boundaries are "your gateway to freedom." Aronofsky and his actors could be poised to leave with trophies in hand this year, too. [In "Mother!" "To a lot of Sam Hunter's pain, it took me 10 years to make this movie and that's because it took me 10 years to cast," Aronofsky said. One line in particular stuck out to him: "People are incapable of not caring." But Fraser is charting what could be a major comeback starting with his transformative role in Darren Aronofsky's "

Director Darren Aronofsky and his star, Brendan Fraser, aim for empathy but come up short.

Here’s Charlie, keening and pleading behind a pane of glass for all of us to sigh and pout and gawk at, before moving on to the next fleeting curiosity. (Again, I see little empathy in the way this scene is framed and choreographed.) Thomas, seeing this heaving totem of misery, wants to save the dying Charlie’s soul, a witless effort toward a man who feels he’s past redemption—spiritually, morally, physically. This is a mighty act of becoming, the film seems to insist—and also one of empathy. But what’s expressed instead is a kind of leering horror, a portrait of a man gone to catastrophic ruin so that we, in the audience, may tap into our nobler, higher minds and see the worthy human being beneath the frightful exterior. Hunter’s 2012 play, The Whale is a story of a morbidly obese man, Charlie (Brendan Fraser), living out what might be his last days as his heart falters and his mind is lost to regret. And now there is The Whale, a lugubrious chamber drama that premiered here at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday.

In Darren Aronofsky's “The Whale,” the onetime leading hunk is earning Oscar chatter for his role as a 600-pound recluse, though the emotional actor is ...

It was clear from the supportive applause at the news conference that people were rooting for the actor, and that personal narrative of a career comeback combined with a showy role could take Fraser to the front of the pack. “I needed to learn to move in a new way,” Fraser said. “I looked different in those days,” he said. But when he was asked about that buzz and what it meant for the future of his career, Fraser said softly that it remained to be seen. And I think that is Charlie.” “It just didn’t move me, it didn’t feel right.” “Thank you for the warm reception,” Fraser said. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, just as you would feel stepping off the boat onto the dock here in Venice.” [Hong Chau](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/movies/hong-chau-downsizing-stereotyping.html)) warns Charlie that his blood pressure is so severe that if he doesn’t change his ways or go to a hospital, he’ll almost certainly die. And whenever the clearly emotional Fraser managed to make it to the end of a statement without his eyes filling with tears, the room full of journalists burst into encouraging applause. Stories like this are possible because of our deep commitment to original reporting, produced by a global staff of over 1,700 journalists who have all dedicated themselves to helping you understand the world. Aronofsky wanted to mount the movie for years but could never land on the right lead.

Darren Aronofsky's The Whale fails Brendan Fraser, saddling him with a reductive role, that never moves beyond the closed-circuit claptrap.

The Whale does not engage outside of the known narrative of the actor in the film — it’s his comeback! (Reminder: the character is physically introduced through masturbation which signals the desire to shock with his body, right from the get, something opposite of the tear-drenched ending and partially why the ending doesn’t feel earned to me). He has a set routine, which includes regular visits from his caretaker, who has ties to his past (Hong Chau), and Dan, the pizza delivery guy who follows the regular instructions of delivery — leave on the ledge, money is in the mailbox. Morton, too, was more of a mainstay in the early 2000s and has faded into lesser roles. The Whale is Fraser’s first leading role in a theatrical movie in a decade. Therein lies part of the problem of The Whale, the main character is not a vessel for his own journey but for a secondary character, and, by extension, the audience.

Brendan Fraser brings a big heart to Darren Aronofsky's faltering adaptation of a stage play about a man eating himself to death.

He seeks out his daughter Ellie (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink), and tries to make amends for the rage and hurt that filled the hole in her life when he left nine years before. But there’s an extra element of shame and taboo attached to compulsive eating; something that Aronofsky confronts with the unflinching and forthright manner in which he uses the character’s (prosthetic-enhanced) body. Smeared in the remnants of past meals, slicked with an oily layer of sweat, Aronofsky stresses the grotesque quality and the indignity of Charlie’s miserable life. And fans of the more spiritual end of Aronofsky’s career spectrum will be gratified to discover that the film is closer in tone to The Fountain than it is to Mother! Following on from its premiere in competition in Venice and a slot in TIFF, the film is likely to be a talking point release and, with word of mouth support, could achieve some degree of theatrical momentum. But since the chronically obese online English teacher is a shut-in who rarely leaves his sofa, let alone his apartment, his actual first-hand experiences of “people” is limited.

Venice, Italy (AP) -- Brendan Fraser is having a moment at the Venice International Film Festival.

At its Venice world premiere, Darren Aronofsky's 'The Whale' received a seven-minute standing ovation; star Brendan Fraser was visibly moved.

In that process, he’s on his journey of salvation.” Star [Brendan Fraser](https://deadline.com/tag/brendan-fraser/) was visibly moved as he was embraced by his director while extended applause rang throughout the auditorium. makes adjectives such as ‘brave’ and ‘fearless’ seem almost meaningless” and said The Whale is “cutting the line to put a never-better Brendan Fraser at the front of the Best Actor race.”

Darren Aronofsky's latest walks a fine line between compassion and exploitation, but its star gives a refined, mournful performance.

And yet to look into his eyes is to see a person who’s willing himself to die, even as he wishes he had the will to live. Charlie is a bit of a pushover, too eager to see the good in others even as he’s unable to acknowledge his own sterling qualities. (The movie’s title is a reference to Moby Dick, the subject of an essay Charlie loves and returns to again and again for comfort.) There are so many ways in which this guy is just a drag to be around; his self-destruction is at least partly entwined with his self-centeredness. [Mother!](https://time.com/4951193/darren-aronofsky-mother-director/) was to some a tortured, pointless spectacle, to others a cautionary tale about the potential cruelty of the creative impulse. His compulsion is a kind of suicide pact he’s made with himself, and he’s locked in a tricky cycle: his increasing weight seems to have made him more depressed and less able to cope, a condition he self-medicates by eating. Charlie’s grief, and what he sees as the mistakes he’s made in his life, have filled him with anxiety and guilt, and the only way he can cope with those feelings is to eat his way through them, even past the point where he knows his excessive weight is killing him. Shot by his frequent collaborator Matthew Libatique, the movie has a dank, used-dishwater look—to represent Charlie’s despair, the total lack of light in his life, of course. He has no insurance, so he relies on his closest—and only—friend, Liz ( [Hong Chau](https://time.com/5027082/hong-chau-gets-big-break-in-miniature/), in a bright, bracing performance), who is, luckily, a nurse, and who also has a knack for stopping by at just the right moment. [Darren Aronofsky’s](https://content.time.com/time/photoessays/10questions/0,30255,2040711,00.html) The Whale—playing in competition at the 79th [Venice Film Festival](https://time.com/6210765/bones-and-all-review/)— [Brendan Fraser](https://time.com/5171977/brendan-fraser-philip-berk-hfpa-sexual-assault/) plays Charlie, a man who has given up on life, which in turn affects how and what he eats. His 2010 nutso-ballerina saga Black Swan was either a work of spangled dorkiness that was impossible to take seriously, or a cautionary tale about the potential cruelty of the creative impulse. The Whale, at least, is a different kind of film for Aronofsky, who has managed to pry the camera’s gaze away from his own navel.

Darren Aronofsky's new film stars Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese professor. It's hard to imagine anyone being as captivating in the role, ...

The Whale is a kind of companion piece to the director's 2008 hit, The Wrestler (although, unusually for Aronofsky, he didn't write either of them), in that it involves a man with an estranged daughter, a heart condition, and a body he has pushed to painfully unhealthy extremes. Fraser richly deserves to be nominated for a best actor Oscar, and if that doesn't happen, I won't just eat my hat, I'll eat as many pizzas and cheese-and-meatball sandwiches as Charlie gets through in the film. For a film that opens with a 40-stone man suffering chest spasms after masturbating to online pornography, The Whale turns out to be disappointingly stodgy and sentimental. (One of Charlie's favourite books is Moby Dick, so the title isn't just a reference to his size.) It's rare to see prosthetic make-up on this scale outside of a body-horror movie, but it's so well done that the viewer comes to accept it within minutes. But all Charlie cares about is talking to Ellie (Sadie Sink), the 17-year-old daughter he hasn't seen since he left her and her mother (Samantha Morton) eight years earlier. The reason for this shyness is that he has been depressed since the suicide of his lover, several years ago, and he has kept eating to the point where he is morbidly obese.

Brendan Fraser attends "The Whale" & "Filming Italy Best Movie Achievement Award" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4 in ...

[According to Variety, ](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/brendan-fraser-the-whale-weight-prosthetics-venice-1235359484/) "The Mummy" star is being touted as a serious Oscars contender with his portrayal in the drama. [his performance in "The Whale," ](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/entertainment/brendan-fraser-the-whale/index.html)

Body horror takes a new form in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, which chronicles the long, slow suicide of a morbidly obese man with pitiless candour but an ...

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Actor Brendan Fraser received a six-minute standing ovation Sunday night at the Venice Film Festival, after making a comeback to the profession following ...

Dude had a super unfair shake in Hollywood, but now it's (hopefully) coming around and he's going to get his due," Fraser had breakout roles in George of the Jungle (1997) and The Mummy (1999). Rooting for all your success brother and congrats to my bud Darren Aronofsky.— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) He underwent a laminectomy (a procedure to remove vertebrae from the spine), a partial knee replacement and vocal cord repair, "Welcome back Brendan Fraser. He supported me coming into his Mummy Returns franchise for my first ever role, which kicked off my Hollywood career.

Millennial fave Brendan Fraser, who seemingly disappeared in the 2010s, makes a belated career comeback in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. The movie may prove ...

In the wake of the profile came a groundswell of solidarity for the star who once dominated our childhoods. In a 2018 interview [with GQ](https://www.gq.com/story/what-ever-happened-to-brendan-fraser), he revealed all: his self-worth plummeted in the wake of an alleged sexual assault in 2003, followed by an aching sense of disillusionment. [Mummy](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-mummy-tom-cruise) trilogy, for one, and starred in such family rental favourites as George of the Jungle. It’s true that this is the sort of thing, where an actor eschews vanity for a boatload of makeup and prosthetics, that voting bodies love: just look at Gary Oldman’s wobbly Churchill facsimile in The Darkest Hour, or even Eddie Redmayne’s controversial take on a trans woman in The Danish Girl. But this was as much a display of collective relief as it was the product of catharsis. It seemed as though he’d waited for years, not so much for the recognition as to be vindicated; truthfully, he has.

Here at The A.V. Club, we know that there's nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a ...

[groped by former Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk](https://www.avclub.com/brendan-fraser-says-he-was-groped-by-ex-hfpa-president-1823237740), and believes that the fallout from that interaction left him all but blacklisted for over a decade. I wanted to know what I was capable of.” That’s the start of an Oscar campaign if we’ve ever heard one. On Sunday night, Darren Aronofsky’s new film The Whale premiered in Venice, where it received a six-minute standing ovation. Now, there is new clapping to talk about and it may even move you (not clickbait!). The actor told Club, we know that there’s nothing that our readers care about more than how many minutes people clap for after a movie premieres at a European film festival.