Darren Aronofsky has never been a filmmaker devoted to subtlety. Requiem for a Dream is a kinetic fever dream turned waking nightmare. The Fountain is an epic mediation on time and reality with a literal Tree of Life. mother! is a creation fable with a rave. Noah has giant rock monsters. Rock monsters. Even his quietest film until now, 2008’s The Wrestler, has wrestling sequences which are bonkers. Aronofsky is comfortable with the point of the film being right in front of you smacking you in the face. When you embrace that, you can embrace one of the few filmmakers working today whose every effort is designed to bring attention to the biggest things in life and the universe: the purpose of existence; the nature of God; the struggle for identity and meaning.

So, many criticism of his newest film, The Whale, make so much sense in light of who Aronofsky is. The most common complaints that I have seen are that it is too contrived, too stagey, and too overwrought. Too which I reply: of course it is. Have you ever seen a Darren Aronofsky movie? That it is contrived and stagey comes from it being adapted from a stage play. That it is overwrought comes from the movie’s creator. But not everything overwrought is bad. The Whale‘s strength, as the strength of many of Aronofsky’s films, is that he is able to use the overwrought surface to find real emotion underneath.

The biggest asset Aronofsky has going for him is the transcendent (and truly beloved) performance of Brendan Fraser. Fraser’s performance provides Aronofsky with the nuance that balances out the lack of subtlety in the material. Fraser’s Charlie is imprisoned by the self-loathing that accompanies the slavery to his appetites. He has figured out how to function in the world without leaving his small home by means of food delivery and telework. He also survives thanks in no small part to friend and nurse Liz (the wonderful Hong Chau), who, even while attempting to take care of him, enables him by bringing him the fried chicken and meatball subs he desires. A health scare is staved off in the moment with intervention by door-to-door young evangelist Thomas (Ty Simpkins), who provides an ongoing gateway for Aronofsky’s ever-present musings on religion. That scare leads Charlie to reach out to his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink of Stranger Things), who has not taken well to Charlie’s abandonment. The story plays out over the next week of Charlie’s life, as he makes steps to overcome the emotional trauma that has brought him to where he is and make the vital connection with Ellie that he has longed for even as he has caused it.

Some have taken Aronofsky and Fraser to task for doing a “fatsuit” film and playing on the tropes of obesity. But, as a fat person myself, I didn’t see mere tropes, but the reality for many obese people. Obesity and self-loathing all too often go hand-in-hand, one literally feeding the other. Finding comfort from trauma in lots and lots of unhealthy food (or alcohol, or drugs, or gambling, and so on) really happens. Believing that the vast majority of people find looking at you find you unpleasant at the very least is not delusional. Even the detail of Charlie guzzling Diet Pepsi instead of the sweetened stuff rang true to this overweight diet soda drinker. Fraser is absolutely believable playing out these “tropes.” But, more importantly, he and his castmates can, in the smallest but most meaningful of ways, move past them, mining the years of these characters pain, anger, and hopelessness to find those things that are good and true. As Charlie says at one point, “Do you ever get the feeling that people are incapable of not caring? People are amazing.” In such a dark, sad story, we do get to see the glimmers of people truly being amazing in their capacity to care when there seems no good reason to. For this, and for those amazing performances all around, The Whale was one of my favorite films of the year.

(Photo credit: A24)