Whalefall

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Whalefall is a survival thriller based on the Daniel Kraus novel of the same name. In this feature, Jay sets out on a dive in the wake of his father's suicide. During this search for his father's remains, he is swallowed by a whale and must race against the clock to escape.

I really don't like not knowing what lies beneath the water; I've always struggled with the thought of diving. For that reason alone, I was entirely riveted by the intensity of the first half of this feature. Whalefall opens as a sort of foolhardy, personal mission. Jay is proving something not only to himself, but to the weighty ghost of his father. There is a moment there where you watch this character who has been terrorised by his Dad over the years, and you feel tremendous empathy for him. And then he is swallowed alive. Watching Austin Abrams give such a stellar physical performance in this is so pleasing; he has really flexed his potential this year. Jay is absolutely brutalised throughout this journey; watching him crushed and squished from within or burnt alive by stomach acid is a true horror unto itself. When this film chooses to run with Jay trying to save himself, being punished for it and persevering, that was when Whalefall had my attention entirely.

The real strength of this feature is the technical prowess that goes into it. Wētā Workshop took the lead on designing a mechanical whale interior that we exist within for most of the film. It is a horrible, claustrophobic space, in which the camera forces us to suffocate steadily with Jay. But it also tunnels closer, with intense close-ups that give us a direct line into Jay's mind as he faces this peril. I loved watching the beginnings of his dive; that initial wade out through the waves is a real work of art and transitions us neatly under the water. I thought the visual effects that were utilised served the film well. The exterior design of the whale, the shots of the squid and even the scale of the underwater sequences all looked quite impressive. I also thought the black and white design of the echolocation scene was an inspired choice. The score also managed to hold those moments of intensity with powerful streaks of melancholy.

While I really felt those moments where the film has you hoping for Jay, I also don't think the story of Whalefall is anything special. If anything, it holds quite a toxic message. Josh Brolin plays Mitt, Jay's father in the film, and he is absolutely the right kind of loose unit, martial, ill-equipped Dad you would expect. It's a really great performance, but it doesn't steer away from the nature of the script. Throughout the film, the pace of the feature is interrupted by a number of flashback sequences of Jay with his Dad. We are grounded very early on in a relationship dynamic that is unhealthy; Mitt wants Jay to be like him, and Jay wants to break free of his father. Mitt is often painted as inflicting volatile behaviour upon Jay, almost with a stronger intent, as Jay is his only son and that seems to put him on a pedestal for some reason. But as the film goes on and Jay uses the skills he learned from his Dad to survive, this results in an almost spiritual reconciliation between Jay and the memory of his father. The film almost pauses to say that Mitt was such a wild, aggressive, larger-than-life person that he was actually worth finding redemption in as a father. Jay's entire relationship with Mitt changes due to the events of the film, but I'm not sure survival capacity equates to years of abuse we were also shown being okay. Ultimately, it's for the audience to decide, but that was where it sat with me.

Whalefall is a real blocky piece of cinema, with the emotional bandwidth of two stocky men at a bar talking around their feelings. I mean, John Ortiz is only really here to tell Abrams to watch out for all the whales in the bay (should've spoken up, John!). But as an audience member, I often felt like I was being treated like I was an idiot by this film. I don't know if I really required the word methane said fifty times to spell out how Jay was finally going to escape. I enjoyed the struggle with the whale being a simple metaphor for Jay's struggle with his father. But watching Jay become delirious, and the whale actually taking on the voice of his Dad? That went quite far. It was also a block of dialogue I wish could have been scrubbed from the entire thing. Not only did it really mess with my immersion, but it didn't feel like a conversation these two characters had earned with one another. Listening to Mitt (as a whale now) ask his near-death son if he was straight or gay felt out of place, just as much as Whale Mitt apologising for never letting Jay have a dog. It's a film that often borders on the absurd, hasn't done enough legwork thematically to pretend to be as deep as it thinks it is and just expects you to really put your suspension of disbelief aside too frequently. Also, for a film with such a great range of talent in the actresses present (Shue, Levy and Rudd), it completely squandered them.

It might be a technical feat of a feature, but the story leaves a lot to be desired. I would give Whalefall a 5.5/10.