Religious trauma is an overt theme in Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale (2022). In his filmography, the director has given a strong impression of his love-hate relationship with God and Christianity, as seen in Noah (2014) and mother! (2017).

In the father-daughter drama The Whale, religious trauma plays as one of the heavy elements. Adapted from playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s off-Broadway play, the film is a melodramatic exploration of pain and its many forms, with religion exerting a big role.

Aronofsky’s approach in his past movies is often unintentionally comical, sometimes pretentious to the extreme that the somberness of his material becomes absurd.

In The Whale, it is only borderline comical. It is emotionally overwrought, the dramatic moments heavily scored to aid the viewer to understand what is going on: apprehension, anger, stress, redemption.

Brendan Fraser’s much-talked-about movie comeback sees him playing Charlie, a morbidly obese college instructor holed up in his smelly apartment, getting frequent chest pains, and refusing medical treatment.

Clearly, he is not making an effort to save himself. Even with emergency-level blood pressure, he still gorges on pizza and buckets of chicken — tolerated by his friend and nurse, Liz (Hong Chau), the only person who cares about him.

The film opens with the intention to make you gag. A sweaty, obese man doing things you are not supposed to see. Then a young man, a Christian missionary, barges in. He takes it all in — the stench of imminent death and physical grossness — and to him, the stench of sin.

Hunter’s screenplay is a gradual exposition of backstories. Revelations drop here and there in conversations. The first thing a viewer wishes to understand is the grief and depression behind Charlie’s eating disorder.

Soon enough, we are informed that he is gay, whose boyfriend, Alan, died some time ago. Since then, Charlie’s soul has died.

The young missionary, played by Ty Simpkins, preaches the end of the world with urgency to Charlie, who is literally at his end of times. The missionary character not only represents the anti-LGBT argument, but also opens up a can of worms about how religion has pushed so many of the story’s characters to their death — literally and metaphorically. In particular, the deep, psychological pain of a gay individual who fears not just society’s judgment but, above all, God’s, combined with the threat of hellfire.

Set in just one location—Charlie’s gloomy, stinky apartment—and lensed by Aronofsky’s frequent cinematographer, the Fil-Am Matthew Libatique, The Whale sways back and forth between being theatrical and earnest.

Charlie’s ex-wife screams her lines in a stagey way. Charlie’s estranged and verbally abusive daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) is often insufferable, and the wheezy Charlie is reduced to a cartoon when he binges on food. Then add the manipulative film score, and this is a movie that’s downright melodramatic — much like last year’s Oscar Best Picture winner, CODA.

Still, the melodrama works. Fraser, who is the “sentimental” Oscar Best Actor frontrunner, knows how to make you cry. And I did weep at the end of the movie. And in that one scene where he tells his ex-wife his hope for their daughter. Beneath the prosthetics, Fraser’s talent naturally surfaces.

Still, I personally think any other actor can do the same job. The drama here is achievable, whereas Fraser’s Oscar rival Austin Butler — I don’t think anybody can do the same miraculous performance he did in Elvis.

Chau, nominated for Oscar Best Supporting Actress, is more impressive than Fraser for her effortless depiction of a conflicted, grieving, protective friend. I’d like to see her win in tomorrow’s Academy Awards.

The Whale is a whale of traumatic emotions brought on by death, abandonment, guilt, shame, and everything that one unleashes on a therapist. It is almost humorless.

It may be mildly comical, ostentatious, and emotionally manipulative — but it still manages to make the viewer empathize with all the characters, especially Charlie. The powerful ending redeems its annoyingly showy elements.

Overall, it’s a good movie — especially if you’re in the mood for misery porn.

3 out of 5 stars
Screening exclusively at Cinema ’76 Tomas Morato until 19 March