by Samuel Nichols, Contributing Writer
127 Hours was one of the first prestige movies I remember going to see on purpose in my cinephile journey. My poor mother had to take me to see a late night showing in January of 2011. Truly a great survival movie and a representation of the indomitable human spirit. I watched it for years and it never failed to give me a bit of inspiration when I needed it. But as the years went on and leading man James Franco’s deplorable behavior came to light, the movie lost its allure to me. Thank goodness for Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, and a big CGI fish because now I have the motivation I need to run through a brick whale…I mean wall!!
After the passing of his estranged father (Brolin), Jay (Abrams) returns to his childhood home. While he spends some time mourning with family, Jay searches for closure in the manner he and his dad bonded: scuba diving. While in the water he witnesses a sperm whale hunting a giant squid, but poor Jay ends up getting pulled into the whale’s mouth with its lunch. With only 90 minutes of air, confined surroundings, and other creatures in the whale’s gullet as well, Jay will have pull himself together and use the training, his dad taught him, to survive.
With the financial and critical success of Resident Evil, despite the disappointing opening weekend of Whalefall, Abrams is having an excellent fall season. Like Resident Evil, he carries this movie on his back like that oxygen tank. He is once again believably terrified and motivated. When you spend much of a movie acting alone inside the CGI-created stomach of a whale, the audience experience is dependent on you selling the performance. While I don’t think this movie will get him an Oscar nod like Franco in the aforementioned 127 Hours, Abrams delivers in spades. Abrams has a kind of everyman quality that feels easy for anyone to relate. He is intelligent but not a genius and he has a comedic sensibility that reminds anyone of how they would talk to themselves with no one else around. It makes those many scenes of him alone inside in the whale watchable and enjoyable.
What pairs well with Abrams’ performance is the claustrophobic setting: a literal belly of the beast. The effects and set design feel realistic and have enough space to watch Jay move around trying to escape his surroundings. But staying in congruence with this being the actual digestion system of a whale, there are real problems to escape. There’s stomach acid, other whale meals, and crunching stomach muscles trying to grind up the “PB and Jay sandwich.” It’s a brutal environment that never lets you feel safe even when Jay is getting close to escape.
Speaking of Jay getting close to something, that relationship with his father becomes a crucial motivator. We get a few flashbacks between Brolin and Abrams. The two are good at playing a strained relationship with Brolin as an outdoorsy, “screw the government,” dad and Abrams as the begrudging yet curious son. They both capture the spirit of their characters very well. While the scenes with them are few, it’s clear they are giving 110%. Unfortunately, some of the scenes are very heavy-handed and overdone in the dialogue. Their relationship is about what is not said between fathers and sons. It’s why Jay uses scuba diving searching for closure. Unfortunately, the two talk too much for their conversations to feel hollow and longing. You can still feel the tension, but it could have been better.
Yet I do have to commend the writing from a thematic perspective. The pairing of having Jay inside a literal whale that will crush him while he deals with the crushing grief of losing his father is a creative one. While he’s remembering how his dad used to teach him to survive, he is reconciling with the fact that holding onto his complicated feelings will not save him. As someone who has lost important people in my life it’s a good reminder that while the hard times were real, so were the good memories. And it’s okay to let go of the difficulties in rather than torturing yourself over what was left unsaid.
When I walked into the theater, I was expecting a thrilling tale of survival and bravery. So, leaving inspired after seeing someone overcoming both impossible circumstances and violent grief, I got more than I bargained for. Perhaps it won’t hold up well in the end of year races, but that won’t change how it made me feel.
Rating: Loved It
Whalefall is currently available in theaters
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