Review of “The Whale” starring Brendan Fraser

An astonishing feat accomplished, playing a father, trying to reconnect with his daughter, while battling obesity and his mortality.

While this actor has personally struggled with issues of weight in the past, and spent time struggling to overcome an assault by a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, we have slowly seen him appear in smaller roles in recent years as he made his way back into the limelight.

This role requires prosthetics and they do an amazing job of giving you the feeling of being there with him while he struggles to do tasks that we no doubt take for granted like bathing and dressing.

He portrays an English teacher, working remotely, we can only assume, post Covid, while trying to find a way into the heart of a daughter he has almost no relationship with. She has no idea that he has supported her financially but has agreed with the mother, not to contact her. Something he is now trying to change.

“The Whale” may not just be a reference to his size, but also to the book reports of “Moby Dick”, that he receives from his students and at the very least references one in particular that “talks him down” from death as it seemingly “calms” him when he hears it.

At the same time that you watch him trying to make it through his apartment and try to accomplish what should be simple tasks like showering, he gave me the feeling of a whale, moving slowly through the water, sometimes looking up with one eye, taking in his surroundings. This while ocean sounds played ever so slightly in the background. It’s this whole subliminal action of being immersed in his world that enables you to almost feel the climactic ending and the grace with which he achieves it.

This is a “not to be missed” performance, by an actor who clearly has more to give.