The Whale (15)
**
Morbidly obese college lecturer Charlie is closing in on a classic All-American death.
Gorging on the finest junk food known to humanity, and refusing hospital treatment because he doesn't have health insurance and can't afford it, his heart is days away from giving out. He is a shut-in, unable to leave his apartment, and so is Samuel D. Hunter’s adaptation of his own play.
Stuck indoors for two hours, the film is a revolving series of dialogues between Charlie and the nurse who cares for him (Chau), the daughter he hasn’t seen for years (Sink), the missionary who wants to save him (Simpkins) and the wife (Morton) he abandoned for a male student a decade ago.
Aronofsky is becoming the Gladstone of fallen leading men. In The Wrestler he tried to save Mickey Rourke; here it’s loveable lunk Brendan Fraser. Both efforts apply the same formula: Oscar-pleading freak show martyrdoms in which physically grotesque middle-aged men try to achieve redemption by reconnecting with their red-haired daughter.
Rourke’s plastic disfigurement meant he came to the role as is. After slipping out of stardom’s loop, Fraser let himself go a bit, put on a few pounds, but here his failings are amplified and distorted to Mr Creosote levels, as he's plopped inside a prosthetic fatsuit.
These redemption studies also require an act of self-purging by Aronofsky. His other films are technical extravaganzas, visually bold and narratively challenging. The Wrestler though was a straightforward piece of social realism, while The Whale is pure filmed theatre. There is some interest and ambiguity in the way Hunter’s play explores what lies behind the desire to help, and the contrast between wishful optimism and stubborn pessimism. But there’s still a bogus theatrical neatness to its resolution.
Rourke looked a certainty, but was denied his Oscar by Sean Penn’s hairdo in Milk. Fraser faces some tough opposition especially as the new puritanism is against dress and make-up acting. Fraser would be good value for a figurine, but you may feel that the suit is doing most of the work.
He is very good, though not necessarily any better than he was in The Mummy films or Journey to the Centre of the Earth. He’s so comfortable up on the big screen, so casually charming, it’s a terrible injustice that he isn’t or wasn’t a big star. I hope this redemption takes.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Starring Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins and Samantha Morton. In Cinemas Feb 3. Running time: 117 mins.
**
EO is a sad donkey travelogue movie. A homage to the timeless pessimism of Bresson's Au Hasard, Balthasar, it’s a contemporary tale of the travails of a wandering donkey as he passes from human to human.
In the beginning, we see EO in the Polish circus where he performs a kind of interpretative dance routine alongside his devoted trainer Kasandra (Drzymalska) under blasting, seizure-inducing flashing lights. (Because no big top show is complete without a lion tamer; elephant parade and interpretive dance donkey.)
Almost immediately, EO is separated from the one human who loves him unconditionally when the circus is closed down by pesky animal rights activists - propelling him across Europe to observe the follies of humanity.
The film looks tremendous and offers up a series of beautifully lit, sumptuous tableaux: donkey in a field at dawn; donkey in the dark but well-lit forest at night. But the follies of humanity EO encounters are so random; (tubby Polish Sunday league footballers and their hooligan fans) as to render the whole thing pointless. Coming from celebrated British producer Jeremy Thomas, EO is a major disappointment. EO, EO, ‘e ought to have steered clear of this one.
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. Starring Tako, Hola, Marietta, Ettore, Rocco, Mela, Sandra Drzymalska, Isabelle Huppert, Lorenzo Zurzolo. Subtitled. Running time: 86 mins.
***
The film career of M. Night Shyamalan, (The Sixth Sense, Split) has been a series of twists, turns and rug pulls, but Knock at the Cabin may mark his most audacious trick yet - a socially progressive, fundamentalist Christian tract.
The Cabin contains young Wen (Cui) and her two dads, (Groff, Aldridge.) The knock is four perfectly reasonable, heavily tooled up, everyday people who have come to ask very nicely if they could choose to sacrifice one of the family triangle, in order to save the world from God's Apocalyptic wrath.
Like us, they are naturally sceptical about the validity of this proposition so the whole film is basically trying to get the audience to take its premise seriously.
And it's very effective. It grips while largely eschewing or inverting the standard methods for inducing tension. The performances, particularly Bautista as the leader of the four, are strong and M.Night retains his gift for finding subtly effective camera angles. He's a very skilled and imaginative filmmaker, and you just wonder what he could make if somebody would vacuum clean all the spiritual mumbo jumbo out of his head.
More reviews at http://www.halfmanhalfcritic.com/
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