Film - The Whale

I warmed to Charlie immediately, before I knew the back story that led him to this path of obesity and self-destruction. For one he is excellent at his job as an online writing tutor and then we learn who Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is. And the film never needed to use any back-and-forth timelines to explain this. It all happened right there in his Idaho apartment. 

His friend Liz (Hong Chau) is a nurse which gives credibility to his situation. I ached to be both of their friends.

The synopsis and trailer allude to everything being about getting reacquainted with his now teenage daughter who lives with her mum. That is the most important thing in Charlie’s mind but to me, there is a whole lot more here. 

I did not notice this film is 2 hours, it seemed much shorter.

It could have explored other avenues, like why there isn’t another support other than the likeable Liz, perhaps other friends or family. But there’s only so much a film can cover in 120 minutes and if the goal is that I will never look at an obese person and make a judgement then that was achieved in the first 10 minutes.

A staggering brilliant film that I cannot imagine not thinking about.

8½/10

PS It’s taken me longer than writing this to find an image of the two main characters together. Honestly, at least 25 mins. So I have gone with one with just Liz.