Gripping belly-of-a-whale drama has an even deeper message
Whalefall
Starring Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin & Elisabeth Shue
Directed by Brian Duffield
Rated PG-13
In theaters Friday, Oct. 16
A young scuba diver searching offshore for the remains of his deceased father instead finds himself in the belly the planet’s largest predator. Euphoria’s Austin Abrams plays Jay, who gets gulped into the massive maw of a sperm whale. Yep, just like Jonah in the Old Testament, or Geppetto in Pinocchio.
But this is no Bible tale, nor a Disney ‘toon.
Director Brian Duffield knows how to rachet up the tension, like he did in the alien-invasion thriller No One Will Save You (2023). Never having been in a whale’s belly, I can’t say for sure, but Whalefall feels alarmingly realistic and genuinely horrifying. The music by Joseph Trapanese, and the exceptionally detailed set design—to depict the oozing, heaving, churning, splashing, squishing, squeezing insides of a whale—create a truly immersive, submersively unnerving experience.
And Abrams—whose other roles include the movies Weapons and Resident Evil, and playing Ron Anderson on TV’s The Walking Dead—knows how to sell it. He makes us feel the panic, the claustrophobia, the intense helplessness and the overwhelming dread as Jay’s oxygen tank begins to empty, and the whale’s digestive system starts to do its thing.
You’d probably scream, whimper, cry and coil into a fetal position, too. And at some point, you’d do just about anything to survive.
And he’s not alone in there. There’s also a giant squid, and it’s not too happy about the tight quarters, either. Thank goodness there’s also an incandescent jellyfish, which Jay uses as a flashlight.
Before all that happens, though, we see the warm relationship Jay had with his mother (Elisabeth Shue) and his sisters (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd) after their salty dog of a dad, Mitt (Josh Brolin), ended his suffering from mesothelioma by becoming one with the sea. We learn that Mitt and Jay didn’t always get along; and that Jay moved away, far inland to Iowa, to get some distance from him.
The most surprising thing about Whalefall (based on 2023 novel by Daniel Kraus) is the poignant father-son relationship central to its story. Even though he’s deceased, Mitt gets a lot of flashback time, and how the movie creates a “reconnection” with Jay and Mitt is one of its impressive narrative feats, interweaving Jay’s dire circumstances with flashbacks in an arc that eventually gives him the much-needed closure for which he’s been longing.
It’s interesting that Whalefall never depicts the whale as a monster; instead, it’s just doing what whales do. Mitt used to say that whales are vital parts of the ecosystem. As Jay fights for his life, it’s almost like father, son and sea beast have become part of the same spiritual loop, the same existential ecosystem, the eternal essence of the water. Has Mitt been reincarnated as the whale? Is Jay hallucinating as he runs out of air?
Beyond its nail-biting undersea drama, Whalefall has a message about how everything is connected. Water, people, family, whales, living and dying, all are parts of something bigger, something as symbiotic and deep and wide, as full of mystery and wonder as the vastness of the sea itself.
Mitt always knew that. “The ocean always provides,” he told young Jay, noting how when a whale dies and sinks to the floor of the ocean—known as whalefall—it creates a thriving biological community for other sea creatures as its body decomposes and its energies are released.
Like the ocean, Whalefall also provides—in this case, a whale of a life-or-death tale with an even deeper message.
—Neil Pond