How Aronofsky’s ‘The Whale’ is an Empowering Story About Honesty
by Alex Billington
December 28, 2022
There is a worth that appears to be changing into rarer and uncommon nowadays – honesty. Sure, it is scary, sure, it may be painful, however it’s a essential and essential a part of humanity. They even make enjoyable of this in Interstellar, with TARS making a joke about how his honesty setting is just too excessive as a result of, “Absolute honesty is not at all times essentially the most diplomatic nor the most secure type of communication with emotional beings.” One in every of my Prime 10 movies of the yr is Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which I already reviewed out of the Venice Movie Competition a number of months in the past. I just lately watched the movie once more for a second time and it actually struck me much more this time round – The Whale is about honesty above all else. It is not likely about being fats or the struggles of being chubby, it is about despair and disconnection and the way being dishonest put everybody within the state of affairs they’re in at this second. The movie is about an overweight man named Charlie who makes an attempt to reconnect along with his daughter over the course of every week, with a really emotional finale the place he actually yells about being trustworthy.
Word: spoilers to any extent further discussing The Whale. The movie is customized from a stage play and feels similar to one. It is set fully in a single condominium, the place Charlie lives, and the entire different characters come there and work together with him. Charlie, performed completely by Brendan Fraser in an awards-worthy function, is studying to be extra trustworthy with himself after experiencing a lot of phoniness in his previous. We study at one level that he left his spouse and his daughter behind to begin a relationship with a person, which harm them each. This was his first main step into being trustworthy along with his sexuality, and his romantic pursuits led him to be with an individual that actually beloved him. Sadly his companion’s spiritual beliefs and conflicts inside himself contributed to his loss of life. That left Charlie in ruins and his unhappiness & despair made him self-medicate with meals, which is now his nice supply of consolation and aid. That is the rationale why he seems to be the best way he does, and he is aware of this, however he is additionally unable to interrupt from this habit anymore and does not appear to care. As a substitute, he focuses on nurturing kindness and positivity with the few individuals left round him, hoping it would make a distinction.
The movie then introduces Sadie Sink as his teenage daughter Ellie. She can be being dishonest with herself and her feelings, caught up within the typical teenage angst of feeling disconnected from everybody. She should study to be categorical her emotions correctly, and Charlie senses this in her, recognizing that love and help is what she wants essentially the most. Then there may be Ty Simpkins as Thomas, a spiritual boy from New Life Church who seems on his doorstep as a missionary hoping to transform him. Afterward we study that every one of this can be a lie, too, and he does not wish to face who he’s, how he actually feels, what he is doing there, or how he must proceed to make amends in his life. There’s additionally Charlie’s ex-wife, Mary, performed by Samantha Morton, who’s in a number of scenes. Ellie reminds Charlie she’s solely in a position to be trustworthy and be “completely happy” when she’s ingesting, which is what helps Mary have a pleasant second of reconciliation with Charlie close to the tip of the movie. The one trustworthy individual in Charlie’s world is Liz, performed by the incomparable Hong Chau. There’s additionally Dan The Pizza Man, however Charlie cannot set up an actual reference to him as a result of he is petrified of exhibiting himself to anybody else.
Liz is a vitally essential character on this story, and Hong Chau humbly takes on this function with certainly one of her career-best performances to this point. Everybody who watches The Whale talks about how a lot they admire her on this, even when they do not like the remainder of the movie. It is as a result of her character Liz is essentially the most trustworthy. She’s the one one who not solely makes enjoyable of Charlie about his weight, about his state of affairs, about something he is considering, however she’s additionally direct with him about his well being as an overweight man on the verge of loss of life. They’re good buddies as a result of they’ve a deep connection which is so pure and uncooked that Charlie & Liz each respect it and are subconsciously intertwined on this method. She needs him to drop some pounds and get wholesome, however she additionally respects his selections and his way of life. She simply loves him for who he’s, no matter how he seems to be or the alternatives he makes, and that is a phenomenal factor. It is one other emotional core of this movie that brings a lot life to the story. Being open & weak with one another is the muse of honest human relationships.
All through the movie, Charlie connects nearly to a web-based class to show writing to varsity college students. He is by no means actually impressed with any of their work and finally, in an emotional outburst, exclaims he would quite hear one thing trustworthy from them for as soon as. This second hit me tougher than any others within the movie as a result of I sense this repeatedly with a lot writing I encounter on the market. Who cares about type and type and ideal writing if you cannot even be trustworthy in what you are saying? Identical to with all artwork, being truthful and expressing no matter’s inside you is extra essential than how the artwork seems to be, or how properly it is painted. The identical goes with writing… It is nearly as if Darren Aronofsky was bored with studying so many properly written but superficially damaging evaluations of his movies, when he’d desire that critics simply be trustworthy. Simply say it, blurt it out. I am proper there with him. A lot writing I come throughout appears to be extra obsessive about how “good” the writing is whereas saying nothing of substance, sounding phony and shallow. The place is the honesty? Why are all of us afraid of it? Sure it may possibly harm and sting however that is part of how we heal and develop as social creatures.
It is doable that honesty could be perilous, which is why TARS says it is not “the most secure type of communication with emotional beings.” However we will not conceal from the reality eternally. It is a lesson we all should study. Charlie learns this, however so do Ellie and Mary. There are different examples of this in different nice movies – in Pixar’s Inside Out, Riley tries to cover her unhappiness and faux she’s not offended and upset about shifting, which simply makes every thing worse. Solely when she learns to let that unhappiness present does she notice how essential anger and unhappiness are to connecting us collectively. In The Whale, Charlie reads out a number of of his writing college students’ trustworthy responses they usually’re all so unhappy and miserable. There is not sufficient time within the movie for him to deal with this, however it’s apparent the purpose being made is that deep down we’re all lonely, all of us really feel dangerous about ourselves, and as a substitute of silently wallowing in that distress, expressing that may be a very important side of bringing individuals collectively. You possibly can’t begin to clear up any drawback till you admit the issue exists. It could be laborious however engaged on that’s crucial. Even Charlie acknowledges this reality, it is a part of his ultimate outcry to Ellie earlier than he meets his maker.
I’ve seen some complaints saying the “Moby Dick” essay that Charlie reads again and again, which it is revealed is written by his daughter, isn’t very properly written and he’s a nasty English trainer. Maybe true, however that is irrelevant. It was written by Ellie when she was in eighth grade, it is not presupposed to be excellent writing, however it’s trustworthy. It is actual. She complains in regards to the guide, she laments how boring and uninteresting a lot of it’s, till she realizes Herman Melville’s passages in regards to the whales are him expressing his personal loneliness and torments, too. This is the reason Charlie loves this essay and why it means a lot to him. That spoke to him deep down. On the time the guide was printed, Melville wasn’t a really profitable author. His personal reality could be present in his writing, and that is extra essential, even when “Moby Dick” is boring. That is what Charlie is attempting to show all of us – past the grave, past the movie – that we’re all lonely individuals and being direct about what makes us unhappy is critical to heal us and reconnect. It is the correct path to take, irrespective of how robust it may appear.
Aronofsky’s The Whale is finally not likely a movie about being a fats man who cannot rise up. Anybody that watches and solely sees it in that method and might solely decide it by the best way it portrays this character is decoding the movie incorrectly. His unhappiness and his struggles have turned him into this individual on the surface, however deep inside he has maintained his beguiling kindness and integrity. That is what makes him the hero of the story. As with every good movie, it is a story about him realizing simply earlier than it is too late that he wants to precise how he actually feels and attempt to remind these he loves how stunning they really are. He repeats “you are superb” to Ellie again and again as a result of it is true, not as a result of it is some dumb factor he simply must say. She must be trustworthy with herself, too, and notice it is true. I consider each final certainly one of us wants to grasp how a lot truthfulness can truly make the world higher. Being afraid of this pushes us additional aside. I attempt to dwell in an open and trustworthy method, spending my time being clear quite than by no means saying what I actually imply. Let The Whale converse deeply to your soul, too. We solely have a brief life to dwell – so let’s be trustworthy whereas we nonetheless can.
