Brendan Fraser in a unique role
Actors have been known to change their appearance dramatically for a movie role. Charlize Theron (“Monster”), Christian Bale (“The Machinist”), Jared Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”), and Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull”) come to mind. Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” based on a play and subsequent screenplay by Samuel D. Hunter, features an amazing physical transformation of an actor into a character..<br /><br />Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is a middle-aged English teacher who deals with regret, despair, and self-destructiveness by overeating to the point of pathological obesity. Barely able to move and ashamed for other people to see his immense body, he isolates himself to his perpetually darkened apartment. He conducts his classes on Zoom and keeps the instructor box blank so that his students can’t see him. His gargantuan size is placing him in imminent danger of suffering a fatal heart attack.<br /><br />Charlie sees only one person, his friend Liz (Hong Chau), a nurse who visits him often and does as much for his health as he will allow.  Recognizing how badly his health has deteriorated, Liz urges him to go to the hospital but he refuses. Knowing death is near, he wants only one thing before he dies — to mend the broken relationship with his daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), whom he was forced to abandon when his marriage ended because he loved another man.<br /><br />Liz is a compassionate woman who both is empathetic to Charlie’s condition and angry with him for being unwilling to get the hospital care he needs. Though fatigued from her efforts to keep him alive, she remains a steady presence in his life as the bond between them becomes increasingly strained by his resistance. Without Liz’s help, Charlie would be dead already. He is incapable of the most basic activities and can’t even lift himself off the couch, get into bed, or answer the door without heaving himself onto a walker. Later, as his health gets progressively worse, Liz brings him a wheelchair large enough to accommodate his huge bulk. For Charlie, standing is extremely difficult, walking nearly impossible, stepping into the light of day out of the question.<br /><br />A young evangelical missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), happens to arrive just as Charlie is having his first heart attack. Thrown into this crisis, Thomas does what he can to help until Liz arrives and takes charge. Later Ellie arrives, clearly disgusted and furious with her absent father. To keep her around for a while, Charlie offers her a large amount of money to inherit when he dies, which, he tells her, will be soon. This carrot tempts Ellie to stay, giving Charlie a chance to explain how sorry he was to leave her. Charlie says “I’m sorry” often, to everyone in his life.<br /><br />The interplay among Charlie, Liz, and Thomas offers insight into all three characters as the knowledge that Charlie is fighting the clock to gain redemption creates suspense. How these three relate to one another is eventually revealed.<br /><br />Charlie’s ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton) appears late in the film and confronts Charlie for his apparently sudden interest in repairing a badly-damaged relationship with Ellie. Mary, of course, has also been abandoned and left to raise Ellie by herself. Morton conveys a combination of indignation, confusion, and motherly protectiveness.<br /><br />Fraser brings a tender quality to Charlie along with the character’s self-destructive inclination, indelibly illustrated when he gorges on food — his way of hastening his demise. Wearing elaborate body and facial prosthetics, Fraser makes Charlie a real person rather than a circus freak. Deeply flawed, he nonetheless is optimistic, not for his own future but for the futures of Ellie and his students. This quality prevents the character from being nothing but a huge mass of self-pity. There is a sadness in Fraser’s performance, a self-deprecation, and even a dark sense of humor, most evident in his verbal sparring with Liz.<br /><br />Sink portrays Ellie on a single note of victimization. Angry and petulant, she accuses, shouts, storms out, insults, and makes cruel comments. This delivery renders Ellie rather obnoxious. Though it keeps sympathy on the side of Charlie, her performance becomes irritating because of its one-note histrionics. Late in the film her icy, intractable veneer gives way when she becomes able to empathize with Charlie’s pain, physical but mostly emotional. The shift is so abrupt, however, that it comes off as inauthentic.<br /><br />Director Aronofsky and screenwriter Hunter have not “opened up” the play,  as is typical in film adaptations, since Charlie’s world is limited to his apartment and mostly to his couch. Aronofsky uses tracking shots to make compositions interesting and has the supporting characters in nearly constant motion, so we see the same set from many different points of view. Touches such as the gripper Charlie uses to reach items because he can no longer bend or stretch, the chain and grip bar he needs to get into and out of bed, and the placement of necessary objects well within his reach underscore his near immobility.<br /><br />Aronofsky challenges viewers to see beyond pre-programmed ideas and biases to the beauty in Charlie, in the cadence of his voice, in his poetic soul. Camera angles emphasize Charlie’s heft and how cumbersome simply getting through an ordinary day is for him. With no flashback scenes of Charlie’s lover, it’s left to Fraser to convey that Alan was the true love of his life, but we learn more about their relationship from Liz than from Charlie himself. The movie depicts a group of individuals who are all adrift and whose emotions waiver among anger, shame, and regret.<br /><br />In addition to a Digital code included on a paper insert, bonus materials on the R-rated Blu-ray release include 2 featurettes and trailers.<br /><br />“The Whale” touches on parental responsibility, sexuality, religious homophobia, and the value of life. Fraser turns in a compelling performance, bringing sincerity, gentleness, and candidness to Charlie. The film is more a character study than a typical narrative, its origins as a play evident in the limited location and dramatic entrances and exits. The screenplay avoids simple soap opera, with well-written dialogue, atypical central character, and first-rate direction. Brendan Fraser won the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance.
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 {"Aspect Ratio": "1.78:1", "MPAA rating": "R (Restricted)", "Product Dimensions": "6.77 x 5.39 x 0.55 inches; 5.92 Ounces", "Audio Description": "English", "Media Format": "Blu-ray, Digital_copy, Subtitled", "Run time": "1 hour and 57 minutes", "Release date": "March 14, 2023", "Actors": "Brendan Fraser, Samantha Morton", "Subtitles": "Spanish", "Studio": "Lionsgate", "Country of Origin": "USA", "Number of discs": "1"}

Here is a brief synopsis of the title : From Darren Aronofsky comes The Whale, the story of a reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption. Starring Brendan. Fraser and based on the acclaimed play by Samuel D. Hunter..