The Whale

Darren Aronofsky’s film never leaves an Idaho apartment. Charlie presses his online writing students to be honest while claiming his webcam is broken, and wants back the daughter he abandoned. Samuel D. Hunter adapted his own play, staged at Playwrights Horizons in 2012, and traces it to teaching expository writing at Rutgers, where he asked students for honesty rather than good essays; one of their sentences went in. Aronofsky spent a decade unable to cast Charlie. They shot in Newburgh, New York, in spring 2021. Matthew Libatique closed the frame to 1.33, since nothing was visible peripherally and the box held over the shoulder angles with Charlie seated. Adrien Morot never met Brendan Fraser: a producer scanned him with a scanner on an iPad and Morot sculpted from that file. Fraser won Actor in a Leading Role, Morot with Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley won Makeup and Hairstyling, Hong Chau was nominated for Supporting Actress. Four BAFTA nominations brought none. The objections differ. Aubrey Gordon rejected a film that humanises a fat man only through humiliation; Daniel Franzese objected to the part going to an actor in a suit. A good fit if you want a film that stays in Charlie’s rooms and never widens. Not for you if his prosthetic body as spectacle blocks the performance.