Sadie Sink – Memphis Flyer

The nominees for this year’s Best Actor Academy Awards include powerful performances, from Austin Butler in Elvis to Paul Mescal in Aftersun, but it’s going to be hard to outshine Brendan Fraser in The Whale. Offering a message that extends far beyond its two-hour screen time, The Whale interprets how society understands mental health and how we connect with others.

When we first meet Fraser as Charlie, he’s wheezing uncontrollably and clenching his chest in imminent fear of death. Shortly after this incident, Liz (Hong Chau), Charlie’s friend and occasional caregiver, diagnoses him with congenital heart failure. Charlie has been struggling with morbid obesity, but that’s hardly the only problem affecting his mental health. His partner, Alan, committed suicide, and his relationships with his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton) and daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) are distant, at best. Overall, the prognosis for Charlie’s life is not good, especially since he refuses to go to the hospital or seek any outside help. Instead of saving his own life, Charlie uses all his energy to help others, despite what they think about him or themselves. By the end of the film, Charlie’s physical hindrances become the foundation for recognizing the inherent goodness of humans and the need for people to lean on others.

I have to admit to not having seen many of Brendan Fraser’s films, beyond loving him as Elliot in Bedazzled (2000). Before watching The Whale, the biggest thought I had was, “Is Brendan Fraser going to prove that Oscar nomination right?” When starting the movie, I wasn’t immediately starstruck. Charlie, although representing realistic problems, was a relatively normal character. He was struggling, yet optimistic about life, and wasn’t afraid of death. Nice thoughts, but they could easily fall into cliche. But Fraser drew me in, and by the second half, I had so many tears in my eyes that my right contact lens fell out, and I had to pause to collect myself as the lights came up. That’s all a tribute to Fraser’s ability to transform this potentially flat character into a desperate man just trying to embrace damaged people with love.

Fraser’s talent is evident in Charlie’s relationship with Ellie. She’s a fiery spirit, violently angry at the world and at Charlie, who abandoned her nine years prior. For her to even consider spending time with him, he has to pay her $120,000. In return, she feeds him sleeping pills and repeatedly calls him disgusting. Despite all this, Charlie keeps telling her she is amazing, perfect, and smart. The emotion between Charlie and Ellie is so real, and raw, and important in a tale about mental health. Their relationship shows how even the most damaged and wrongful people can come back from their mistakes and learn to love again.

Appropriately for the story of a homebound person, The Whale is set in just one room of Charlie’s apartment, with staging that sometimes resembles a play rather than a movie. There is little to no music, which forces you to listen and pay attention to what each character has to say. Your sustained attention helps director Darren Aronofsky build complex characters such as Liz. She diagnoses Charlie with congenital heart failure, and then proceeds to feed him a jumbo sized bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. She is Charlie’s only true friend, but over time, she uses him as a crutch to evade her own suppressed trauma.

Hidden from the spotlight for some time, Brendan Fraser has definitely come back strong. I will be rooting for him for Best Actor recognition, and continue rooting for him long after the award window closes. Overall, this film definitely gave me hope that the film industry is not saturated with remakes and Marvel movies, but instead yields movies that can deliver a good watch, a good cry, and a heightened perspective.

When it comes to film and TV, my viewing experience is different from yours. The average American sees four films in the theater every year. In 2019, I’m on pace to see well over a hundred films in theaters and probably at least an additional hundred films at home.

I’m also a filmmaker, which makes me a functionalist. When I watch something, I think in terms of what works and what doesn’t. Does a scene do what the filmmaker intended it to do? Does it transmit the information and convey the emotional impact needed at this moment in the piece? “Does it work?” is a subtly different question than “Is it good?” A film or show can “work,” but the piece itself can be bad. Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper is one of the most loathsome films of the decade, but it works because it effectively uses all the little tricks of film grammar to make you sympathize with a guy we first meet slaughtering Iraqi women and children. I recognize the craftsmanship, but you couldn’t pay me to watch it again — and I got paid to watch it the first time.

(l to r) Sadie Sink, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and Caleb McLaughlin

It’s easy for me to crawl up my own … crawlspace and just tell everybody to pack it in and go watch Shoplifters because the modest little Japanese film about a dysfunctional family of petty criminals rocked my world. But as a reviewer who writes for a general audience, I feel like it’s my duty to be aware of and reveal my biases, so even if you don’t agree with me, you can say, “Well, he wasn’t into Fast & Furious 27: Bald Men Punching Each Other, but it sounds like something I’d like.”

All this is to say, I am an absolute sucker for Stranger Things.

Yeah, there it is. I admit it. Matt and Ross Duffer have my number. I am powerless against their Spielbergian riffing. I understand at some level that Stranger Things, whose third season premiered on Netflix on Independence Day, is basically just Happy Days if it was set 30 years later and directed by John Carpenter. I understand that I would use “cheap ’80s pastiche” as a withering criticism for most other shows. I think the level of nostalgia the show trades in is probably unhealthy. And yet, here I am, ravenously chomping down on it and then sopping up the sauce with a biscuit.

In my defense, Stranger Things still works. The ensemble cast of teenagers, led by English actress Millie Bobby Brown as the psychic superweapon known as Eleven, is one of the finest on any screen right now. And at least there is an acknowledgment of the passing of time. The first season’s core group — The Party, as they refer to themselves in D&D terms — of Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Will (Noah Schnapp), and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), with the second season addition of Max (Sadie Sink), begin season three united, then, as any group of kids do, start to slowly come apart. Dustin’s pet project Cerebro, named for Professor X’s telepathic enhancer, is really just a souped-up shortwave antenna he wants to use to contact his girlfriend from Utah he met while away at summer camp. Sure, like he’s got a girlfriend in Utah, right?

The onset of puberty is hitting The Party pretty hard. Will and El have discovered puppy love, until her guardian Hopper (David Harbour) intervenes, and Max teaches El when it’s time to “dump his ass.” This group discord comes at an inopportune time, as mysterious forces are once again messing with the portal to the Upside Down, and the spectral Mind Flayer is back, this time with a side order of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Reagan ’80s had a lot of good movies, but there was a lot not to like. Stranger Things season three points more clearly toward the bad parts, beginning with the soundtrack. The first two seasons were awash with the rediscovery of vintage synth sounds, while the new crop of songs draws from the pop sludge that dominated the airwaves in 1985. The corporate colonization of the economy is represented by the new mall, which is shiny on the surface but evil on the inside. Joyce (Winona Ryder, effortlessly incredible) feels her job in Downtown slipping away and distracts herself with yet another paranormal investigation. Economic insecurity manifesting as creeping paranoia was a subtext in the ’80s horror and sci-fi films the show references, and that remains as relevant as ever. Maybe William Faulkner understood the real secret of Stranger Things‘ success when he said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”