The whale

“The way it’s structured, this play is designed to slowly and repeatedly turn up the pressure until it almost can’t be tolerated,” said Davis McCallum, who directed a 2012 off-Broadway staging at Playwrights Horizons. “And then it has this really cathartic release at the end of the piece — a blackout, a sound effect, and a moment where the audience just lived in that silent darkness together.” Both the play and the movie “The Whale” center on Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a reclusive, morbidly obese instructor of online writing classes who has been eating himself to death since the passing of his lover, a casualty of religious homophobia. Darren Aronofsky’s intimate chamber drama, adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his own play, navigates a tricky line between empathy and exploitation. The character is an amalgamation of Hunter’s past lives: as a closeted gay kid attending a fundamentalist Christian school in rural Idaho, a depressed adult who silently self-medicated with food, and an expository writing instructor for college freshmen (the piece’s heartbreakingly honest line “I think I need to accept that my life isn’t going to be very exciting” is an actual submission from one of Hunter’s students). Throughout “The Whale,” Charlie is visited by his estranged and troubled daughter, (Kevin Berne / Marin Theatre Company) Throughout the intimate live piece — which is staged without the escape of an intermission — all five characters reveal truths to each other and the audience that...

In the middle of awards season, the list of nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards was announced Tuesday, and The Whale was nominated in three categories: Best Actor (Brendan Fraser), Best Supporting Actress (Hong Chau) and Makeup and Hairstyling. In the Best Actor category, Fraser is up against Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin, Austin Butler in Elvis, Bill Nighy in Living and Paul Mescal in Aftersun. For Best Supporting Actress, Chau is competing against Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin, Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere All at Once and Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All at Once. This year’s Academy Awards aren’t until March 12, so if you’re looking to The Whale, however, isn’t available to stream anywhere yet, but it’s still in theaters. Director So for now, here’s the trailer:

• العربية • Azərbaycanca • Беларуская (тарашкевіца) • Català • Čeština • Deutsch • Ελληνικά • Español • Euskara • فارسی • Français • Galego • 한국어 • Bahasa Indonesia • Italiano • עברית • Latviešu • Magyar • Nederlands • 日本語 • Polski • Português • Русский • Simple English • Slovenčina • Српски / srpski • Suomi • Svenska • ไทย • Türkçe • Українська • 中文 Running time 117 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $3 million Box office $54.7 million The Whale is a 2022 American The Whale premiered at the Plot [ ] Charlie, a Charlie is also visited by Thomas, a Charlie hopes to reconnect with Ellie, his estranged teenage daughter whom he has not seen in eight years. He offers her the $120,000 in his bank account if she spends time with him without her mother's knowledge. Ellie relents when he agrees to help rewrite a school essay, though he also would like her to write in a notebook he gives her. Charlie's health begins to rapidly decline; Liz brings him a wheelchair so he can remain mobile. Liz is disgruntled by Thomas' visits and chastises him. She reveals she is the adopted daughter of New Life's head pastor and that Alan, Charlie's deceased boyfriend whose death from suicide caused Charlie to start uncontrollably Ellie places crushed A heated exchange occurs in which Charlie reveals the amount in his bank account that he planned to leave Ellie, causing Liz to storm out over being lied to about why he avoided medical treatment. Alone, Mary and Charlie argue about t...