The Whale
The Whale
Protozoa Pictures
A24
Description
From Darren Aronofsky comes The Whale, the story of a reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption. Starring Brendan Fraser and based on the acclaimed play by Samuel D. Hunter.
Release dates
September 4, 2022 (Venice)
September 11, 2022 (TIFF)
December 9, 2022 (United States)
Directed by
Darren Aronofsky
Screenplay by
Samuel D. Hunter
Based on
The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter
Produced by
Jeremy Dawson, Darren Aronofsky, and Ari Handel
Starring
Brendan Fraser as Charlie
Sadie Sink as Ellie
Hong Chau as Liz
Samantha Morton as Mary
Ty Simpkins as Thomas
Sathya Sridharan as Dan
Cinematography
Matthew Libatique
Edited by
Andrew Weisblum
Music by
Rob Simonsen
Darren Aronofsky discusses The Whale
“What I love about The Whale is that it invites you to see the humanity of characters who are not all good or all bad, who truly live in grey tones the way people do, and who have extremely rich, intricate inner lives. They’ve all made mistakes, but what they share are immense hearts and the desire to love even when others are seemingly unlovable. It’s a story that asks a simple but essential question: can we save each other? That feels important in the world right now, especially when people seem more than ever to be turning their backs on one another.”
“For me, this is what cinema is all about. Through the power of emotion, a story like this can put us into the shoes of a man we might otherwise never even wonder about, and remind us that all the promise of love and redemption is there in every human existence.”
“Charlie is a very flawed person, but he understands the power of imagination. He believes that if you take the time, anyone might imagine, and maybe even understand, someone else’s world.
Samuel D. Hunter discusses The Whale
“I know many people who are big, happy, and healthy, but I wasn’t. I had a lot of unprocessed emotions from attending a fundamentalist Christian school where my sexuality came to bear in an ugly way, and that emerged in an unhealthy relationship with food. When I started writing The Whale, I think it all just came pouring out of me.”
“Unprocessed grief is the ground floor of everything for Charlie. He’s suffering from congestive heart failure, but maybe he’s really dying of the grief he’s never reconciled.”
“Nobody likes expository writing, but I remember I got to a point where I was begging my students, please just write something truthful. Write anything you actually believe. That’s when one of my students wrote what is now a line in both the play and movie: ‘I think I need to accept that my life isn't going to be very exciting.’ I will never forget reading that because it was like a sliver of light suddenly opened up on the page, and I could see this person and their humanity illuminated.”
“Charlie is looking for that, from himself and from others.”
“As a teacher, the only way Charlie can even hope to connect with Ellie is through her Moby-Dick essay.”
“It felt completely different to me because I was so much more naked, not hiding behind anything, and it just felt really vulnerable.”
“Darren and I were drawn to the challenge of keeping it all in this one space where the characters are trying to save one another. But it had to not feel claustrophobic.”
“The atmosphere needed to feel inviting enough that audiences could lose themselves inside it.”
Brendan Fraser discusses The Whale
“I admit I was intimidated. I had real fear going into this, but that just underlined for me the importance of digging even deeper than I knew I could. Maybe it was an antithetical choice, but I had never before been asked to do something like this: to combine everything I’ve learned in my professional life, to fit all the elements of character-building together into a unified whole, but also to put everything inside me on the line in this way.
“And I was grateful for the chance.”
“Everything I’ve got I’ve put on the screen.”
“There was nothing I held back. It is all there.”
“Charlie is no angel, but he is incredibly human. Inside I think he is Walt Whitman.”
“Charlie is a lover of life and all its beauty, but he’s also in hiding.”
“Charlie’s inability to move on from grief is borne of him not being able to be the person that he wanted to be. He is full of guilt over Alan’s passing, guilt over walking out on a life with his daughter, guilt over all the things that might have been.”
“He’s not calculating or malevolent, but Charlie has done great harm mostly by not being forthcoming, not being authentic. And now he is in a battle of self-versus-self. He has put off squaring things with his loved ones for too long, and it’s nearly too late. When he tells his students they must find a way to tell the truth, he is preaching as much to himself as to anyone. So now it’s come down to these few days, and he has no idea if he will find any redemption or not.”
“Charlie knows it is too late to turn the ship around, but he also knows he can get people to respond to his vulnerability.”
“I do know all too well what it feels like to be mocked and ridiculed mercilessly.”
“But maybe no more than anyone else in this world today, or anyone on social media. We all learn now how to turn off that hurt.”
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