Whalefall Review: Incredibly produced, questionably written
We got so many movies in theaters this week that I was mentally being suffocated like I was being compressed by the innards of a whale in an attempt to figure out a schedule in which I could watch them all. I ended up seeing Whalefall first because, unfortunately, it will most likely be the first one pulled from the lineup that came to my theater. So, did this deserve to be screwed over like Austin Abrams's fictional characters have consistently been, or is it a great movie that deserved more limelight? That's what I, Brighton Nelson of The Reel Ranker, will be discussing in today's review. Thanks so much for joining me, and I hope you enjoy your time on the site!
Let's start with the positives. First, Austin Abrams' performance is wonderful. He doesn't get too many speaking roles within the main plot, but he uses body language to captivate and carry the film through panic, exhaustion, and psychological distress. During the flashbacks, he delivers an emotional performance that carries the weight of the emotions his character went through in the past regarding the traumatic childhood experiences he had with his father.
The production design and tactile space within the whale is rather icky, tense, and horrifying. The slime, water, and organs all create a visceral, disgusting experience that captures what being trapped inside of a beast would have to feel like. The exterior whale and ocean shots are beautiful and stunning to watch. The score and sound design accentuate the gross-out factor, but in the more emotional flashback moments and the final shots of the whale, they create a beautiful atmosphere. Overall, the film is equally beautiful, grand, gross, and tense.
Now for the negatives. First of all, this movie should've been like fifteen minutes shorter. The fact that he doesn't instantly resort to attacking the whale and getting barfed out was baffling. As much as I appreciate that he didn't want to harm the whale, that doesn't apply in life-or-death situations, and he knows whale fall helps the environment anyway. Not that this movie is scientifically accurate at all, but somehow, the main character's choices were almost as unbelievable as the science. If we picture a whale as something that can host a proactive, calculating human and still leave room for creative escape routes, it needed to be more creative and play more into the strengths of the main character's experience with the ocean. As-is, it felt like he was trying to be dissolved by the whale's stomach and become fecal matter, until his random epiphany near the finale.
While I appreciate how the author, director, screenwriters, and consultants worked hard to get the biological structure and ocean-related details right, I still felt taken out of it the whole time, knowing none of it had any grounding in reality. I think this story would've been far more captivating if it focused on a fictional animal on an alternate planet, since it would have more room for creativity. I'm okay with bending some rules for books or cinema. Yet, when your whole plot revolves around a survival event that can only be survived through divine intervention, it just isn't super captivating.
In real life, a whale would spit out a human covered in technology almost instantly. They are biologically designed to avoid consuming anything outside of their standard marine wildlife diet. And, if not, the organs would cause humans to pass out from methane exposure and be so tight they'd suffocate from constriction, pressure changes, and lack of oxygen almost immediately. I'm not even someone particularly interested in marine biology, but I still struggled to buy into what this film was selling.
The other major negative is that Josh Brolin's dad character and that whole plotline didn't work for me. I'm already simply tired of how many movies feature stupid parents who ignore all their kids' interests—if you are going to have kids, you have to love them, and not force them to become a clone of you. Movies keep making parents like this and then trying to get us to sympathize with them, and Whalefall doesn't do it well. If you're going to try to make me not want to push a neglectful parent into the stomach acid of a whale, you've got to do better work than this. Here, the character is just annoying and not very interesting, and while he's the reason the main character lives at the end, I'd honestly say this is one of the rare cases where less focus on the characters would make it better. Or just have it at the beginning as a smaller detail or setup. As-is, these moments consistently weaken the impeccable tension.
The Reel Ranker Verdict
Reel or Unreel? - Unreel
The Reel Ranker Score: 48%
Letter Score: C
Star Ranking: 2.5 out of 5
Whalefall might be a compelling, dark thrill ride about a man being trapped in a whale. Being trapped in a whale has always been an unsettling, chilling concept, but here, it simply didn't work. The film is overly long, feels at arm's length with its logic gaps, seems like it should've been a sci-fi film, and fails to be as reflective or emotional as it wants to be. On an acting, visual, and auditory level, it's wonderful, but everything else is weak.
Interested in checking out some recent reviews for some other horror or thriller films? See them below!
Brighton Nelson
Brighton Nelson
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