What happens in THE WHALE
An essay on the film from Darren Aronofsky
--
When The Whale opens, it immediately apologizes for its aspect ratio, while at the same time letting the decision explain itself: what you are about to see will be a reduction of a life into a square box. A single black square bears the emblem, “Instructor,” among a sea of squares containing faces. The voice of Brendan Fraser combines with the image to introduce the main character, a man named Charlie.
Charlie is talking about topic sentences in writing. He does everything he can to convince his students to put in the work and reach for original ideas. He begs them to be honest, authentic. He dismisses a question about not having a webcam while he teaches this online course, remarking, “You’re not missing much.”
This simple scene sets up the expectation that eventually, Charlie will appear to his students to reveal his condition: he is a recluse, locked in his house because of a severe problem of obesity. The audience doesn’t have time to wonder how he came to be in this state before Charlie experiences chest pains. A knock at the door brings in a stranger who quickly recognizes Charlie’s distress. Charlie hands him an essay about the literary classic Moby Dick to read to him.
The stranger claims to be a missionary and obeys Charlie’s directive to read the essay out loud. When the pain has passed and the stranger makes his leave, he turns around to stop and say he doesn’t understand why Charlie wanted him to read it. “I thought I was dying, and it’s a very good essay,” he says.
A friend who is a nurse comes to visit Charlie. Liz, played by Hong Chau, cares for Charlie because he was important to her brother. It is through Liz the audience learns Charlie’s backstory. It is through Liz we discover that Charlie had a partner named Alan, her brother. It is through Liz we realize that Charlie has had a lot of emotionally devastating events in his life. He was married to a woman, had a daughter with her, and left them both after he fell in love with Alan.
His daughter, Ellie, played by Sadie Sink, has been estranged from him ever since the age of 8 until Charlie calls her and invites her to his apartment. Why now? What is it that makes Charlie reach out to her after all this time? Liz has…
