A moving and melancholy story about a morbidly obese English teacher who tries to right past wrongs of his increasingly reclusive life, cineSarnia will be screening The Whale at the Sarnia Public Library Theater on Feb. 26 and 27.
Starring Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, Crash) as protagonist Charlie – in what has been described as the performance of his career – The Whale is ultimately a film about a broken man deeply disappointed with his life choices, attempting to do one final bit of good by reconciling with his estranged daughter.
Set almost entirely in Charlie’s cloistered, claustrophobic and perpetually dark apartment, the film explores how this educator, who teaches only online and lies to his students that his computer’s camera is broken lest he reveal his physical state to others, ended up losing his will to live as a result of a seemingly unbreakable addiction, technology, low self-esteem and increasing social avoidance.
The slow-burning film also looks at several key relationships in Charlie’s shrinking world – his relationship with his cantankerous 17-year-old daughter Ellie (played by Sadie Sink), who he hasn’t seen in a decade after he left her mother ( Charlie’s alcoholic ex-wife Mary, played by Samantha Morton) for another man; his relationship with his nurse Liz (Hong Chau, nominated for an Oscar in this role as Best Supporting Actress), who both pleads to Charlie to stop his life-shortening behavior while also providing him with food; and his relationship with a young evangelical missionary (Ty Simpkins) who attempts to save Charlie after seemingly randomly knocking on his door.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) and written by Samuel D. Hunter (Hunter wrote the stage play as well as the screenplay), The Whale is a heartbreaking yet ultimately redeeming movie that has earned substantial Oscar buzz and great praise for Fraser’s performance as well as the makeup which makes him nearly unrecognizable.
Audiences looking for something substantial will be wowed by this layered psychological drama, said cineSarnia’s Daniel DeVries, and the remarkable performances given by Fraser and the film’s small ensemble.
“This is quite different from what (Fraser) has done in the past,” DeVries said. “Apparently this is a career-defining performance for Fraser.
“The reason it resonates with people is that it seems this is a person whose life didn’t go the way he wanted it to go,” he continued. “The stage play and the movie…It’s possibly an attempt by the playwright to probe the contrast between what we hoped to be, what we wanted to be and what we actually become. Aronofsky as a director, in this movie as in his past movies, he’s not there just to entertain – he’s there to probe and poke around to some extent, sometimes uncomfortably.”
The Whale will be playing at the Sarnia Public Library Theater on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2 pm and Monday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 pm
Rush tickets are available at 1:45 pm on Sunday and at 7:15 pm on Monday for $12.
Individual tickets are available at www.cinesarnia.com.
The elevator for the library will be working on Sunday from 1:15 to 2 pm and on Monday from 6:45 to 7:30 pm
For more information about upcoming films, visit www.cinesarnia.com