The Whale * * ½

I'm not a fan of stage plays being made into a film and then presented as cinema.  Especially when the adaptation doesn't do much more than the original play, confining itself to one location with people making their entrances through one door, and all that talky talky to tell us things which true cinema would simply show us. 

I can't help thinking, what's the point? 

I guess one of the points is you win awards, because The Whale is well nominated.  I can only imagine that members of  judging panels are so unfamiliar with theatre and stagecraft they are amazed when they see it on the screen and  think it's a new genre of cinema.

Whaddya mean, only 2 and a half stars?!

The Whale is one of those plays written in the old style.  The original play was written ten years ago but it looks like something written many years before that. The story might be contemporary but it has a decidedly conservative structure, primarily set in one room with one player and four others coming and going.  Its loaded with heavy, heavy handed symbolism and references. 

It's about a man called Charlie who lives in a cheap apartment.  He's dying of regret and grief. Those things might not kill you, but eating to the extent that your body is horrifyingly obese and overloaded will, and that's what the principal character is doing, Regrettably his mission is not as fun to watch as La Grande Bouffe.

He makes a dollar by teaching an online literature course.  He's currently teaching Moby Dick (get it?) He has a caring nurse who visits him every day.  Other players are a young man who knocks on his door with the hope of leading Charlie to the Lord and his daughter who is an embittered teenager.  Later in the play we get a visit from his alcoholic ex-wife.  I guess in the original play that would have been after intermission.  

The daughter is mad at the world and mad at Charlie because he left the family when she was only eight.  Now Charlie want's to reconnect with her. "Eff off!" is her response. The play is primarily about getting over that hurdle. It's probably a pretty good stage play if that's your thing. I mean, it ticks all the boxes with full circle, character revelations (each has a secret), references to important literature which we will all recognise (Moby Dick, Song of Myself etc) And as I mentioned, a whole lot of symbolism - it never stops raining outside, ornaments around the apartment with nautical themes etc

I acknowledge the fine acting from the whole cast, though I don't know about all this "Give 'em an Oscar!" nonsense.   The principal character Charlie is played by Brendan Fraser in a (very) fat suit and using his wonderful voice. His acting is superb.  You can give him a Tony (I think that's what they give stage and theatre actors).  

It's directed by Darren Aronofsky, who seems to have a thing about making cinema look like theatre.