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 already told us: Charlie is dying. He knows it, and he clearly wants to connect with his daughter because he believes she is the one good thing he will leave to the world when he goes.
Charlie spends a lot of his final moments reaching for things, even if it is difficult to do the work of reaching. His frustration eventually comes out in an announcement to his students: “Fuck these papers. FUCK these readings. Write me something honest.” He is quickly let go from his job because of this announcement, but in his final online class he admires the handful of authentic responses he received and turns his webcam on for the first time. He shows his students who he is, admonishes them on the true meaning of courses and coursework and college, and tells them the honest responses he received are more important.
Thomas, the missionary, encounters Liz and Ellie at different visits to Charlie’s apartment. Liz tells him to go away. Ellie tells him to come back. Liz explains to Thomas that the church he claims is the church responsible for killing Charlie’s partner, Alan. Ellie takes pictures of Thomas smoking marijuana and records his confession of grand larceny from his hometown. Liz cares for Charlie. Ellie cares about something else.
How Ellie treats Thomas becomes of interest both to the audience and to Charlie once Thomas comes back to the apartment to tell him: she heard him talk about his crime and why it is the reason he cannot go back home. She finds his church, locates his parents, and shares the recording and photos with them. Thomas receives a call from his parents explaining that they’re not angry, “It’s just money,” and that he should please come home. Charlie takes all this in without really connecting the dots, but later he recalls Thomas’ story to Liz. Liz struggles to understand because Charlie is speaking about it out of context. The concern on her face makes it clear he may only have moments left.
Charlie, in learning that his daughter has helped Thomas reconnect with his family, realizes that she is a good person despite her troubled emotional responses in their few days together. Though she seems to despise Charlie, she keeps returning to his apartment. Despite her tough exterior, Ellie clearly longs for a father. Just before the climactic moment of his imminent death, she almost leaves his apartment. Yet, she cannot go through the threshold. She begins to cry and calls out for her daddy. She knows he cannot save her, but she wants him to try.
The final sequence of The Whale mirrors a few earlier ones: Charlie listens to Ellie read the essay on Moby Dick while his chest is in pain; we did not know she had written it years prior. She did not know he had read it, had memorized it, had used it to see his daughter for who she was. And he tells her the things a father should say to his daughter: you are amazing, you are beautiful, you are a good person.
And Charlie gets up, finally obeying the Christ-like beckoning his daughter gave him the first time she visited him: get up and walk to me. Charlie takes his final steps toward his daughter as she reaches the end of her essay, and he is lifted up and out of this life and into the next one.
