Courtney Howard // Film Critic
WHALEFALL
Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 46 minutes
Directed by: Brian Duffield
Starring: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, Jane Levy, John Ortiz, Emily Rudd
WHALEFALL isn’t solely a survivalist book-turned-film about a scuba diver accidentally being swallowed whole by a giant sperm whale. It’s about dealing with unresolved, suffocating and toxic grief and guilt caused by a father who has difficulty communicating his unconditional love. I lost my father 3 months ago and, minus the scuba gear and tattoos, this story gave me profound insight into the relationship my own hard-ass dad shared with my 2 younger siblings. I was a blubbering mess throughout. Part coming-of-age forgiveness journey, part visceral nightmare fuel, this film by director / co-writer Brian Duffield and co-writer/ author Daniel Kraus takes us on a harrowing, healing and heartrending ride through the literal belly of a beast.
Reticent twenty-something college student Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams) has traveled from Iowa back to his childhood home to reunite with his mom (Elisabeth Shue) and his sisters (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd) in the coastal hamlet of Monterey Bay, California. It’s the one year anniversary of his caustic, if not cruel, terminally ill father Mitt (Josh Brolin) committing suicide by jumping off a boat, sinking into the freezing cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. The emotional undertow of the father-son struggle hits hard. It gets real, real fast. The montage of Mitt yelling at Jay at different points in his life – especially whenever scuba equipment is involved, the situation gets one-sidedly contentious – is overwhelmingly intense to make us deeply internalize the anguish and anxiety Jay experiences being stuck in these traumatic environments (like on their boat and inside his bedroom).
In order to gain closure for his family, Jay decides one foggy morning to set out on a mournful quest to find his dad’s remains at the bottom of the ocean. He fills up his tank in the wee hours, coming into contact with Mitt’s former bestie (John Ortiz), who warns him of heavy coast guard activity at the beach roundabout where Mitt died. Jay hurries into the rough waves at a slight disadvantage having forgotten his gloves. After searching amidst the kelp forests, he sees the shelf and hesitates, spotting what could be a skull on a cliff not too far off in the distance below. It’s not, but he encounters a giant squid fleeing for its life from a sperm whale. He unwittingly gets tangled up in the squid’s tentacles and is sucked down the throat of the whale. Jay awakens to a world of trouble, from his oxygen being limited to 1 hour to being trapped with no way out and with a snappy squid, who clings to him longer than Rose clung to Jack in the Titanic wreckage.
Duffield and Kraus find a sufficient balance between the edge-of-your-seat terror conjured by Jay’s oppressive physical circumstance and the psychological closure he seeks over his father’s death. Metaphors and symbolism aren’t subtle, but they are potent. The whale represents grief that swallows Jay whole, as well as the person he harbors the most resentment toward. Scenes where he ponders the guilt of not acknowledging his father’s clear offers to bond (over boats, whale lore and books) cut like a knife. We all wish we could’ve had that kind of enlightened understanding when the deceased was alive. Whenever he passes out due to pain, a flashback is pulled from the deep recesses of his memory that offers the advice he needs to surmount obstacles – not all of which works. Grief isn’t a linear journey, after all. The ticking clock device is utilized to maximum efficiency, increasing tension. We’re acutely aware of the air in the tank Jay is losing with each passing second.
Action sequences are well-constructed. Even though Jay is stuck in claustrophobic whale innards (mainly in three distinct chambers: a gray throat, a blue bioluminescent, blubbery romper room of a gullet and a peach-color squelching stomach filled with goo galore), Duffield and co assign a signature style to each escalating scenario. Violent muscular contractions and acid are other obstacles in Jay’s way. Production designer James Avery and cinematographer Aaron Morgan find color and character with lighting and wet surfaces inside the tight caverns. Immersive sound design also augments the audience’s fear factor with percussive thumping, whale clicking, water sloshing and ear-drum popping when Jay inevitably is subjected to the bends.
In the outside world, Jay’s flashbacks never aesthetically look drab, nor dour, despite his disciplinarian dad’s callous demeanor. Though when the sun appears, it feels warm and well-earned. Jay’s memories, as he ruminates on milestone moments between him and his dad, not only give us a greater picture as to what shaped him, but remind him of the advice that’s shaped him into becoming the man we see before us. The psychological and physiological tools that once traumatized our hero are turned into items that help him continue his fight for survival, the final implement being his father’s love.
The film lives or dies on the strained father-son relationship. Brolin and Abrams make a solid pairing, infusing their performances with strength and a resounding vibrato. Brolin’s tough outer shell – as men raised in that sort of generational male stoicism typically attain – covers a tender, vulnerable heartbeat. Abrams plays his character as the flipped inverse, with his external armor being penetrable and his interior core having been hardened by his demeaning father who undermined his confidence. The film’s bookend shot that utilizes a god’s eye POV aesthetically mirrors the narrative character conceits. Abrams’ pipes get a workout, screaming in agony when wince-inducing injuries befall him. At one point, his pained yawps sound akin to a braying donkey.
WHALEFALL plays like a cross between WILD, ABOUT TIME and a newfangled Jonah and the Whale biblical parable. The thematic sentiment woven throughout that death is not an ending, but a beginning is extremely moving. While some might be quick to mistakenly and rather dismissively label it “Daddy Issues: The Movie,” the filmmakers constantly subvert the sub-genre’s stereotypically manipulative, tacky tropes and elevate our expectations.
Grade: A
WHALEFALL is in theaters on October 16.
