Whalefall
Director: Brian Duffield
Cast: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy, Emily Rudd
Rating: ★★★★
You don’t walk into the theatre to watch a film about a whale swallowing a man whole, expecting it to be anything other than a survival thriller or maybe a coming-of-age drama if you’re lucky. Well, colour me surprised then. For I wasn’t aware of what Whalefall had to throw at me. The Daniel Kraus novel was so much more, bringing a tale of survival into the story of a boy’s attempts to connect to his father. And Brian Duffield’s adaptation of the book is that, and much more. With stunning visuals, some brilliant performances, and amazing camera work, Whalefall is the genre-bending surprise of this fall that reminds you of what cinema can truly achieve.
The plot
Jay Gardiner is a teenager trying to come to terms with the death of his estranged father Mitt, who killed himself by jumping into the ocean in order to escape a death by cancer. Even as Jay never got along with his domineering father, he is haunted by the fact that Mitt’s remains were never found. So, he decides to undertake one final act of rebellion against his dead father, dive under the sea to find his remains. But he is swallowed by a sperm whale, and now the only way to survive is to remember everything Mitt – a local diving legend – taught him over the years.
A technical marvel
Whalefall takes you inside the stomach of a sperm whale, a space that is constricting not just in the physical sense but also because of the mental terror it evokes in the protagonist. The claustrophobia that Brian Duffield is able to generate in the scenes set in the ‘interior’ of the whale set the film up quite nicely. We feel Jay’s fear, frustration, and helplessness through the visuals and the music alone, even when he isn’t saying much. Full marks to Aaron Morton’s cinematography and Joseph Trapanese’s score for bringing to life this tricky vision. The use of the fisheye lens to further bend the subject almost inwards into the screen by Morton is also a choice that merits praise. All of it creates an urgent environment.
But Whalefall is equally splendid when things happen ‘outside’. The few shots of the whale surfacing and diving are magnificent, truly showing you the scale of the challenge in front of Jay as the film shows you the beast’s size. Equally brilliant is how the film depicts the darkness of the ocean. One particular sequence of the whale swimming through the depths of the ocean has some of the best visuals seen on screen since Project Hail Mary earlier this year.
And all of this is elevated by the sound design, where you ‘feel’ each squelch of the whale’s entrails, each snap of Jay’s bone, and each guttural scream to nowhere. Whalefall is relentless, but in a good way.
The stunning performances
Austin Abrams is the star of the show, managing to reel the audience in with just his grunts and screams at times. His penchant for humour at dire times and comic timing are supreme. For the second time this year, the young actor has found himself in a race against the time in a survival thriller, and for the second time, he has emerged a winner, both figuratively and literally.
Josh Brolin, as Mitt, is effortless. He embodies the ‘tough guy’ charade of a father scared to fail his son, and also of a sick man too scared to die helpless. The veteran actor is the perfect foil to Austin with his restrained but remarkable performance.
A surprising genre mash-up
But what truly separates the film from being just another survival thriller is how it blends the story of Jay and Mitt’s relationship and estrangement with the central escape. Each misadeventure that Jay has in his Jonah arc makes him realise something about his father and how he was trying to raise him. Whalefall never makes an excuse for Mitt and his domineering ways, but it shows that you can forgive your loved ones and yourself if you simply understand their story.
The path Whalefall takes to this resolution is audacious. The climax is something that may not land for everyone, so experimental and novel is it. But it does one thing nicely, closes Jay’s arc in the only way possible.