Review: 'Whalefall' is a strange survival tale inside a whale, but it gets too serious when diving into a turbulent father-son relationship
Just as sperm whales barf up ambergris, a waxy substance once famously used to make perfume, Hollywood sometimes horks up an oddity like “Whalefall,” a strange and not very successful swing at a survival thriller.
Austin Abrams stars as Jay Gardiner, a college student in Iowa visiting his mom (Elisabeth Shue) and his sisters (Jane Levy, Emily Rudd) in the seaside California town where he grew up. The visit comes one year after the death of his father, Mitt (Josh Brolin), a salty sea dog who taught Jay how to scuba dive and respect marine creatures.
Screenwriters Brian Duffield (who directed) and Daniel Kraus (who wrote the novel on which this was based) reveal early on that Mitt was dying from mesothelioma and opted instead to die by suicide, putting diving weights around his waist and jumping into the sea. Jay decides he’s going to recover Dad’s remains, so he puts on his scuba gear, gets his tank filled with air, and goes out to where Dad jumped. Doing so, he evades the Coast Guard crew that has closed off the beach, because of reports of sperm whales and orcas nearby.
Once in the water, Jay becomes the star in the most bizarre action sequence I’ve seen in a long time — when he gets bumped by a massive whale and caught in the tendrils of a giant squid the toothy whale is trying to eat. By the time it’s over, Jay is stuck in the whale’s esophagus, trying to keep from being pulled further down the animal’s digestive tract. He estimates he’s got less than an hour of air left in his tank, and limited options for how to get out.
The scenes inside the whale are weirdly fascinating, a one-against-nature thriller that plays like a waterlogged remake of James Franco in “127 Hours.” If Academy voters want to think outside the box, they should give a long look at the work of production designer Ramsey Avery here.
Unfortunately, Duffield (“Spontaneous,” “No One Will Save You”) is less sure-footed when the movie comes up for air. The story is laden with flashbacks that reveal of the fractured relationship between Jay and his father. The scenes get mileage out of Brolin’s craggy visage and gravelly voice, but the seriousness of the drama here is at odds with the weirdness of Jay’s survival efforts in the whale.
Then there’s the movie’s final scenes, which suggests Jay is intuiting a cosmic bond between the whale and his father — a flight of metaphysical fantasy that is more ludicrous than transcendent, and leaves “Whalefall” drowning in its own self-regard.
——
‘Whalefall’
★★1/2
Opens Friday, October 16, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for peril, violent content, bloody images, some strong language, and thematic content. Running time: 106 minutes.