One would never have imagined googling “what does the inside of a sperm whale look like ?” for a film review. Whalefall, directed by Brian Duffield, based on the novel by Daniel Kraus brings that question up. Jay (Austin Abrams) was taught to dive by his father, Mitt (Josh Brolin). Mitt is a hard man, driven by his passion for the sea, and an unapologetically tough parent. He wants to pass along his understanding of the interconnected ecosystem of the ocean.
Jay is disinterested and resentful, seeing his father like The Great Santini, but because he’s Mitt’s only son, he is the chosen successor. He does not share his father’s love of the sea, nor his “take no prisoners” approach to life, and they are estranged when Jay leaves for Iowa. When Mitt is dying of cancer, he elects to strap on ballast weights and jump into the ocean for one last dive, never to surface again. Arriving home feeling horrific guilt, Jay takes his old dive gear out to find his father’s remains.
While he searches, he is swallowed by a giant sperm whale. Still alive inside the whale, he has an hour to escape until his air runs out. As the pressure gauge counts it down, Jay flashes back to the rocky relationship with his dad. He suffers a claustrophobic gauntlet of injuries and terrors inside the whale, including a fight with a large squid the whale swallowed along with him.
Whalefall shifts gears several times. It opens as a family drama, then turns to action/adventure, and then morphs into a horrific gastrointestinal odyssey through the digestive system of a whale, and finally, becomes a spiritual release in a transcendent metaphysical dream state. The problem with all that is finding the audience. Horror fans will roll their eyes at the intensely emotional journey. Lovers of relationship drama will not enjoy the revolting trip through a whale.
“… he is swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale. “
The best aspect of the film is the beautiful cinematography of Monterey Bay and Monastery Beach. The underwater shots are also exquisite and the diving details are accurate. Then we get to the whale guts. There’s just no nice way to put this: it’s just gross. Most of the runtime is spent watching Austin Abrams enfolded by stomach and gullet, splashing around in hydrochloric acid, and trying to wriggle out of a whale’s anus.
Mild spoiler here: The final segment of the film goes off the rails in a big way. As Jay has seemingly run out of options, he hears the voice of his father as the whale. This may have seemed like a reasonable emotionally charged moment of catharsis in the book, but it’s damn goofy in a novelty film about being trapped in a whale. Brolin’s sappy whispers of absolution and encouragement are meant to be poignant, but instead hits as profoundly silly. It’s hard to imagine Brolin reading the script with a straight face and not laughing his ass off. You can almost hear him whispering “I’m getting paid, bitch.” We are asked to take seriously a man who is literally neck deep in guts having an ethereal connection with his deceased father.
Abrams is a trooper for doing this part. He has gone from playing a drug addict in Weapons, to a courier fighting off zombies in Resident Evil, and now this character who is stuck inside a giant marine mammal. If there was an award for best performance covered in disgusting goop, it would be his. Another problem is that much of Abram’s dialogue is incomprehensible due to having a regulator in his mouth.
Brolin has done this character before, and recently. In The Dog Stars he plays a very similar gruff man with a heart of gold. He’s fantastic, but it is repetitive. Elizabeth Shue plays Jay’s mother, and it is always delightful to see her, even in a small part, because it feels like we’re hanging out with a dear friend we haven’t seen in a while.
The novel, Whalefall, was a bestseller. As good as the book might be, it simply doesn’t translate to the screen. If Duffield had focused on the middle section of anatomical ick you’d have a solid body horror film, but layering in a journey of emotional discovery is bizarre.
"…it simply doesn't translate from book to screen"
