'The Whale' is a heartbreaking, emotional story

During the Winter Film Festival at the Dietrich, ‘The Whale’ can be seen Friday, March 3, at noon; and Sunday, March 5, at 7 p.m..

A reclusive online English teacher, living alone in the wake of a tragedy, attempts to reconnect with his teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption in this emotionally-charged story of heartache, empathy and grace.

Darren Aronofsky’s ‘The Whale’ is one of the most moving films I have seen in some time. The film delivers a few heart-wrenching moments scattered throughout and an extremely emotional performance by Brendan Fraser.

Fraser’s performance as the morbidly-obese recluse is just simply amazing. In most of his performance you really feel the emotion and heartache that the character is going through. This is absolutely the actor’s best performance and really deserves all the accolades that he has been receiving for his latest role. Let’s hope that Fraser comes back for more films in the near future.

The scenes that feature Charlie and his daughter (Ellie) can be a little hard to watch and really moving at times. There are moments that you can easily sense Ellie’s hatred for her father since they haven’t seen each other in years. Hong Chau, who plays Charlie’s care-giver and only friend, also does a great job playing the only person in his life currently. Chau also has a couple little moments here and there that break the emotion a bit and will make you chuckle.

Once his ex-wife (Ellie’s mother) comes into the picture for a very pivotal scene, the emotion can’t get anymore real. This is where Charlie slowly begins to break down a little more and once he says to his ex-wife “I need to know that I have done one right thing with my life!” you will likely start to feel a little emotional yourself. This is actually a segment of the scene that the filmmakers used in the trailers a lot.

The film was definitely on my radar for some time after seeing the initial trailer. Once I saw that Darren Aronofsky and indie studio A24 (which is slowly becoming one of my favorite smaller studios) was collaborating for a film, I had a feeling it would be a great project.

And, before you check out ‘The Whale’ at the Winter Film Festival, make sure to bring tissues. At a screening that I attended, once the credits began rolling, I saw a few audience members were really moved and teary-eyed. So, make sure to see this amazingly moving film at the festival while you still can!

The cast: Brendan Fraser as Charlie; Sadie SInk as Ellie; Ty Simpkins as Thomas; Hong Chau as Liz; Sathya Sridharan as Dan and Samantha Morton as Mary.

‘The Whale’ is written by Samuel H. Hunter (based on the play by) and directed by Darren Aronofsky (Mother!; Noah; Black Swan; The Wrestler).

‘The Whale’ is rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content and has a running time of 117 minutes.

Let me know on my Wyoming County Press Examiner reviews page on Facebook what you thought of the film and what other films have you seen during the Winter Film Festival so far? Also, keep on checking on Facebook to see what else I will be reviewing in the coming weeks head!

https://youtu.be/nWiQodhMvz4