Film & Television
Film review: The Whale flounders in its muddled journey from stage to the screen
Darren Aronofsky’s maudlin reworking of Samuel Hunter’s play fails to live up to Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-nominated performance in this intensely claustrophobic space
Sometimes, an actor is far too good for the film in which they appear. Take Brendan Fraser, Oscar-nominated for his humane and vulnerable title performance in Darren Aronofsky’s muddled and mawkish adaptation of Samuel D Hunter’s stage play, The Whale.
Fraser plays Charlie, a 40-stone college professor of English literature. Devastated by the recent loss of his partner, he lives in a mouldering apartment in a rural American town and delivers his lectures by video ...