![]() The Whale only takes the contrast further by stranding his beautiful soul in a body the movie, for all its gestures toward empathy, frames as monstrous. Some of his most memorable early roles, including The Mummy, Encino Man, and Gods and Monsters, have played on this combination of qualities. Fraser has long been an actor whose imposing physical presence contrasts with an air of gentle guilelessness. ![]() The Whale has a similar fascination with spectatorship as a form of masochism: To watch Charlie suffer is to suffer along with him, but it is also, in a formulation less flattering to the viewer, a way of allowing him to do the suffering on our behalf, maybe even for our entertainment.Ī large part of the movie’s first hour is devoted to observing Charlie’s daily habits with a voyeurism thinly disguised as compassion.īrendan Fraser has said that his preparation for playing Charlie came in part from his experience of living with his oldest son, now 20, who has autism and is obese. A hard-to-watch sequence in which Charlie eats his way through most of the contents of his fridge in a self-destructive binge reminded me of Aronofsky’s drug-addiction horror show Requiem for a Dream, a film I have never forgiven for grossing me out without providing enough meaning or beauty to make the experience worthwhile. ![]() His suffering, in the form of both physical discomfort and spiritual torment, is foregrounded in nearly every scene, sometimes to an unintentionally comic degree, such as when, as he lunges toward one guest minutely chronicling the indignities of being a human being of his size, Rob Simonsen’s score surges with music more suited to a monster movie than a single-location character study. ![]() Hunter from his own stage play, positions Charlie as a kind of Christ figure, though it isn’t clear who or what he is meant to be saving with his intentional self-sacrifice. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |