THE STORY – Following the death of his father, Jay Gardiner goes diving off the central Coast of California in search of his remains, but is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. While trapped inside its belly with only one hour of oxygen left, Jay comes to realize that the hard-earned lessons his father imparted may be the key to his escape.
THE CAST – Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, Emily Rudd, Jane Levy & John Ortiz
THE TEAM – Brian Duffield (Director/Writer) & Daniel Kraus (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 106 Minutes
“Whalefall,” Brian Duffield’s latest film, has certainly caught many moviegoers’ attention in recent months. The trailer has been almost inescapable at local cineplexes, where audiences have seen a tense teaser of an out-of-his-depth scuba diver being swallowed whole by one of the ocean’s most powerful creatures. It’s one of those magical moments in a theater when you hear someone around you murmur to a friend, “We should see it,” that makes you realize something big might be coming. “Whalefall” feels like an all-too-common early-2000s midbudget studio film, yet its spotlight only grows thanks to the star at the center of the picture: Austin Abrams. Abrams, fresh off another one-night-in-hell cinematic escapade with Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil,” is ready to switch gears with this adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s popular novel, which aims to slow things down a bit. While the survival thriller delivers plenty of moments that keep audiences on the edge of their seats, “Whalefall,” like its protagonist, barely gets a second to breathe.
In “Whalefall,” Abram’s Jay, a college student reuniting with his family in the one-year aftermath of his father Mitt’s suicide, seeks some type of solace. His self-exile from his ocean-side home to the plains of Iowa is intentional, driven by his tumultuous relationship with Mitt, played by Josh Brolin. While he casually brushes off his emotions with his family, he truly wants to prove his father wrong and find his unrecovered remains deep in the ocean. Jay’s quasi-noble pursuit turns disastrous when a monstrous sperm whale swallows him, leaving him with only an hour of oxygen in his tank. With no resources, Jay must recall painful experiences with his father to find ways to navigate the impossible situation he’s in if he’s ever to escape the belly of this whale. “Whalefall’s” uneven opening soon gains momentum as Duffield heightens the urgency of Jay’s need to breach these waters.
Once we’re thrown in underwater, the film elevates as Duffield’s direction maintains the tension needed to transfer Jay’s anxieties to the audience, as we watch our misguided protagonist squirm along the walls of this massive creature’s innards, desperately hoping to find a path forward. Abrams, who constantly squeals and moans, is carried through the canals of this massive sperm whale, making for a continuously enjoyable spectacle. Viewers will recoil in their seats as Jay adapts to the claustrophobic surroundings that keep him in this slimy prison, with each new deviation only knocking the wind out of them. When “Whalefall” separates itself from the more high-strung sequences to focus on Jay and Mitt’s relationship, the supposed glue holding the film together, audiences may find the overt sentimentality a bit drawn out.
Duffield, along with Kraus, maintains a structure in which periods of Jay’s survival struggles are intercut with flashbacks of Mitt’s verbally abusive past, depicting him as an out-of-touch father far more concerned with his connection to the water than his son’s feelings. Brolin sparingly yet effectively embodies the performance an actor like Nick Nolte would’ve delivered if this film were made decades ago. A disgruntled man devolves into a wheezing, drunken mess whose mesothelioma strips him of his nautical passions, further widening the gap between him and Jay. There’s enough juice between Brolin and Abrams to garner some sympathy for these two frayed dynamic, especially when “Whalefall” shifts to an intriguingly more psychedelic edge, where Jay’s internal conflicts about his feelings toward his father transpose onto the whale in this almost Stockholm-syndrome-type relationship. We see Jay speak to the whale as a stand-in for his father, yet they’re depicted as something ecologically entwined, leading to some of the film’s more baffling moments. Duffield and Krau’s screenplay shifts from an emotionally stirring depiction of reconciliation to an almost hybrid exploration of man’s tie to the earth that would make James Cameron proud. Yet the comically out-of-place dialogue that breaks through is surely enough to erode much of the heft from the thinly sketched dramatic throughline.
Abrams’ performance certainly keeps most of the film as grounded as it could be, selling every ounce of pain, frustration, and the minute moments of delight that reel audiences in so effortlessly. He overrides most of the screenplay’s issues by thriving under Duffield’s steady direction. The constricted cinematography by Aaron Morton and Joseph Trapanese’s scenic score do plenty to immerse audiences in what is one of the worst experiences someone could have while casually scuba diving. The film wears its heart on its sleeve and, at times, tests the audience’s patience, but “Whalefall” has enough to draw viewers into a mostly enjoyable and thrilling experience. If the initial consumption chase sequence where Jay is fighting for his life to be inhaled doesn’t do it for you, then you may be out of luck.
