“The Whale” by Darren Aronofsky, Moby Dick, my daughter and me

The Whale ***

the Darren Aronofsky

American film, 1:57

Does the failure of his computer camera deceive his audience? Charlie teaches literature classes remotely to his students who only see, instead of his face, a black screen. Passionate, he encourages them to look ever further within themselves for the springs of a sincere writing, the only one worthwhile. Would they listen to him with the same fervor if they discovered his appearance?

For years, Charlie has lived reclusively in his home in Ohio, chowing down on the worst of junk food (“junk food”) that has left his body deformed and crippled. Only Liz, friend and nurse, comes to break her loneliness. Faced with worrying signs of exhaustion, she fears his death if he is not hospitalized urgently, which he stubbornly refuses.

Brendan Fraser transformed and magnetic

By adapting the play written by Samuel D. Hunter, brilliant with intelligence and humanism, Darren Aronofsky signs an intense film. He keeps the title (The Whale), a reference to Moby Dick, the work that obsesses Charlie.

While cavernous hues reinforce an uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia, beauty pops up where you least expect it. With Thomas, a young proselyte from an evangelical sect who takes it into his head to save the brilliant professor, and Ellie, his daughter whom he has not seen since he left his mother for a student. It was after the death of this beloved man that Charlie, mad with grief, fell into suicidal eating habits.

Metamorphosed and magnetic, Brendan Fraser upsets by embodying this obese man, obsessed with the desire to rebuild the relationship with his child in the little time he has left. Nominated for an Oscar, the actor, who describes Charlie as “the role of his life”, awakens an empathy that destroys prejudice. At her side, Hong Chau is superb as a devoted friend reduced to helplessness and Sadie Sink, as a teenager whose ferocity equals the wound caused by abandonment.

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