'Whalefall' review: Austin Abrams fights for survival in a grotesque, claustrophobic nightmare
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Disney
Austin Abrams is really going through it this year. As if getting pummeled by a ravenous undead apocalypse in Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” and doused head-to-toe in gallons of blood weren’t enough, Bryan Duffield’s “Whalefall” finds the actor literally swallowed by a giant sperm whale, with precious little time to fight, claw, and squirm his way out. If that sounds like an unfilmable premise, you wouldn’t be wrong to question it. Adapted from Daniel Kraus’ novel, “Whalefall” is a completely ludicrous survival thriller that somehow manages to find genuine emotional footing amid all the bodily fluids, stomach acid, and increasingly preposterous circumstances. There’s a surprising amount of heart buried beneath its grotesque exterior, aided considerably by a committed Abrams, who spends much of the movie getting the absolute shit kicked out of him. “Pinocchio” this is not.
If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to find yourself trapped inside the belly of a whale, “Whalefall” offers an appropriately horrifying answer. Abrams plays Jay, a young man searching the ocean for the remains of his deceased father, Mitt (Josh Brolin), who, after being diagnosed with lung cancer, took his own life by jumping from a boat. Their relationship was anything but harmonious, and Jay’s search carries the additional weight of unresolved grief and years of emotional baggage. Unfortunately, his underwater expedition takes a rather unfortunate turn when he becomes caught in the path of a giant sperm whale pursuing a squid, resulting in both Jay and the unfortunate cephalopod being swallowed whole.
Now trapped inside the whale’s digestive system, Jay must contend with a giant squid, corrosive stomach acid, and an oxygen supply that gives him roughly an hour to figure out how the hell he’s going to escape. It’s an outrageous predicament, made all the more unbearable by the cramped, slippery surroundings and the realization that virtually everything around him is actively working against his survival. Duffield makes excellent use of these limitations, turning what could have been a repetitive exercise in watching someone struggle in a confined space into a series of increasingly desperate, stomach-churning obstacles.
Interspersed throughout Jay’s ordeal are flashbacks detailing his fractured relationship with Mitt, a hardened father whose idea of preparing his son for the world involved exposing him to its cruelty. Brolin brings an imposing presence to these sequences, playing a man whose lessons were often delivered with more aggression than affection. As Jay struggles to survive, the skills and knowledge his father drilled into him begin to take on new significance, forcing him to reconcile the damage Mitt inflicted with the lessons that might ultimately save his life. It’s not exactly subtle storytelling, and the parallels between Jay’s physical entrapment and his emotional baggage are practically spelled out for the audience. Still, the film finds something worthwhile in the uncomfortable notion that a parent’s influence can be both damaging and indispensable.
Of course, none of this exists within any reasonable realm of scientific plausibility. Sperm whales don’t swallow and digest human beings in the manner depicted here, and the mechanics of Jay’s survival become increasingly difficult to swallow themselves. By the final act, Duffield and Kraus have pushed the material into an almost surreal territory, with the relationship between Jay and the whale taking on an overtly symbolic dimension. It’s the kind of creative gamble that will probably make or break the movie for most viewers, particularly those unwilling to entertain its more fantastical developments. I found myself surprisingly invested, even as the screenplay strained credibility to its breaking point. There’s something oddly inspiring about watching Jay improvise his way through one impossible obstacle after another, especially when the movie has already made it abundantly clear that conventional logic has gone out the window.
What makes that investment possible is Abrams, whose performance does an enormous amount of heavy lifting. Spending much of the runtime alone inside the whale, he has little to rely on beyond his physicality and ability to communicate mounting exhaustion, panic, and desperation. Anyone who remembers that particularly disturbing sequence from Jordan Peele’s “Nope” will have some idea of the nightmare fuel on display here, although Duffield stretches that discomfort into something far more sustained. The production design is remarkable, transforming the whale’s interior into a pulsating, suffocating environment where every movement feels like a battle against the creature itself. It’s disgusting in all the right ways, but there’s also an impressive tactile quality to the filmmaking that makes Jay’s predicament feel immediate, even when the circumstances surrounding it are patently absurd.
Duffield also deserves credit for understanding how to balance the relatively small physical scale of Jay’s confinement with the much larger emotional stakes of his journey. The initial swallowing sequence is a terrific example of escalation, building from underwater tension to sheer, jaw-dropping insanity with an almost breathless sense of momentum. Yet the film’s greatest achievement is that the spectacle rarely overwhelms the character at its center. Even when the father-son material becomes too insistent about what it represents, Abrams grounds those ideas in a recognizable struggle to make peace with someone who caused him considerable pain.
“Whalefall” is undeniably ridiculous, and its heavy-handed metaphors occasionally threaten to turn an otherwise inventive survival thriller into an overly elaborate therapy session. The film doesn’t always trust viewers to make the emotional connections themselves, which is a shame considering how effectively Abrams communicates them without the screenplay’s additional prodding. Nevertheless, there’s an earnestness to Duffield’s approach that makes the whole endeavor considerably more affecting than it has any business being. Nobody watching will know what it’s like to fight their way out of a whale’s stomach, but the feeling of being trapped by grief, anger, and the lingering influence of a parent is considerably more familiar. Somehow, amid all the slime, blood, and digestive juices, “Whalefall” finds a way to make that connection stick.
Grade: B
WHALEFALL is now playing in theaters.
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