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A lot has been said about Brendan Fraser’s central performance in this film, mostly due to it being excellent but also because he is not very well known for dramatic parts and following health issues and fickle Hollywood preferences he has been out of the pictures for a while.

As Charlie, a dangerously obese man trying to move past his past, Fraser does play the character with a heartbreaking mix of pain and warmth and if he does get the Oscar on 13th March it will be well deserved. Whether you want to herald it as a brilliant comeback for the actor or not, it is powerfully moving. There are a lot of prosthetics involved too which the Academy does seem to love. This is fair though, it does add another layer to the performance in more ways than one.

It has to be said that most of the actors in this film are exceptional though. Sadie Sink, as the daughter Charlie wants to connect with, and Hong Chau as his one true friend, connected to him through tragedy, are both superb here as well. If this film is Fraser’s great return then it also marks a significant step in the early career of Stranger Things’ Sink and, following The Menu, part of a long overdue showcase of the talents of prolific supporting player Chau. The latter is also nominated for an Academy Award. Then there is an extended appearance from Samantha Morton that is another example of how to bring incandescence to the portrayal of an ordinary person. Only Ty Simpkins fails to measure up but there is no shame in this when he is in this company, and his story is the one that doesn’t quite fit into the narrative as well as it should. Ultimately his character proves to be more of a plot device than anything else. Still though, based on this the actor will soon become known for more than being the surprise guest at Tony Stark’s funeral.

Part of the reason that everyone in this has such a chance to shine is the theatrical nature of the film. It all takes place in one location and its stage origins are always evident. This is only ever a problem when the performances can’t fill the screen though so there are no worries here. The most notable thing about the intimate nature of the story and the setting is what a departure it appears to be for director Darren Aronofsky. His movies are normally presented on a huge canvas with great ambition and spectacle but this is not the case here. His last film Mother! was set in a single house as well but oh my god, was it ever not limited by its confined space. (You have to see that film to know quite what an understatement this is.)

There are common themes between this and Aronofsky’s other work though. Interestingly, I initially thought that the main poster for this was a little basic (the metaphor heavy goldfish poster above is not the one you’ll see advertising this movie). The widely used promo sheet simply shows a photo of the protagonist’s face but viewed next to the only slightly more stylised posters for Mother! and Black Swan (still the director’s best) there is an obvious pattern and indeed each film is a laser precise examination of a human psyche cracking under pressure and circumstance.

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There is a third poster, also little used in the publicity, that is almost identical to the one for Requiem for Dream and again the notions of delusion and a failure or inability to face the responsibilities of life in that film find representation here as well. The Whale does not have the usual flights of fantasy you see in Aronofsky’s movies but there is even the briefest sign of this right at the very end where I momentarily thought Vecna might have followed Sadie Sink from her famous Netflix show.

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The Whale is not a perfect film, as the title may suggest there is an extended Moby Dick analogy which sits quite heavily throughout, and some of the drama does feel as though it would have worked better on stage. It is definitely worth seeing though and it does explore the plight of people with similar conditions to the main character that cinema has rarely addressed. In fact, at a time when lots of actors are expressing regret for donning comedy fat suits in the past, it is great to see a movie that really shows why they should.

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The Ripley Factor:

The film only really has a cast of five and as discussed, three of these are women. Each of them is portrayed as strong yet flawed (this again is typical of the director) but in totally different ways and while this is not a demonstrably feminist movie it does depict women in a totally appropriate way.