The Whale

A massive performance as a mammoth man can’t keep The Whale from being dramatically light as a feather.

Brendan Fraser’s portrayal of a 600-pound man living out perhaps the final week of his life drives this character study about regret and redemption from versatile director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), which can’t shake its stagebound roots and lacks the narrative texture to make a greater emotional impact.

Fraser plays Charlie, a reclusive English teacher who lives alone in an Idaho apartment, where his morbidly obese frame keeps him mostly confined to the sofa.

His purpose seems to be driven by the essays from students in his online creative writing class, although he tells them the camera on his laptop is broken to avoid revealing his appearance.

Sweating and in constant pain, Charlie seems pitiful and hopeless, hoarding junk food as a coping mechanism for shortcomings in his personal life, including an apparent former relationship with a male student that ended tragically.

Charlie’s interactions with visitors reveal details about his downward spiral. A nurse (Hong Chau) is apparently his only close friend and confidant, although her pleas for the stubborn Charlie to seek medical attention go unheeded.

His estranged teenage daughter (Sadie Sink) is blunter: “You’d be disgusting even if you weren’t this fat.” But he still desperately wants to reconnect, even if her mother (Samantha Morton) wouldn’t approve, before his heart gives out.

In his first big-screen starring role in more than a decade, Fraser commits to the role beyond an awards-baiting physical transformation that includes an array of head-to-toe prosthetics. He fully inhabits Charlie’s insecurities and moral complexities, generating hard-earned sympathy in the process.

Aronofsky doesn’t shy away from emphasizing Charlie’s rather grotesque features, even tightening the frame with a boxy aspect ratio. However, this chamber piece with a single location, talky script, and pared-down cast feels like more of a pandemic side project.

Adapting his own stage play, rookie screenwriter Samuel Hunter delves into the psychology of obesity with only modest insight, while the more thinly sketched periphery roles only occasionally spark to life.

Like its protagonist, The Whale is smart but fragile, moving slowly but digging beneath its flabby exterior to find compassion and catharsis. Still, despite some intriguing character dynamics, the intended bittersweet poignancy remains elusive.

Rated R, 117 minutes.