>It’s an exercise in abjection in the mode of Aronofsky’s torturous Requiem for a Dream, but it’s focused on an even more vulnerable target than Requiem’s addicts. Some enjoy this miserabilism but it's likely actively harmful to some audiences.
>Aronofsky turns up the audio whenever Charlie is eating, the wet sound of lips smacking together and ominous music. Fraser’s neck and upper lip are perpetually beaded with sweat, and his T-shirt is dirty and covered in crumbs. In case viewers still don’t get that they’re supposed to find him disgusting, he recites an essay about Moby-Dick and how a whale is “a poor big animal” with no feelings.
>The story in The Whale’s first half is a gauntlet of humiliation. An evangelical missionary walks in on Charlie as he’s having a heart attack, gay porn still playing on his laptop from a pathetic attempt at masturbation. Charlie’s nurse and only friend, Liz enables him with meatball subs and buckets of fried chicken.
>A plot point where Charlie refuses to go to the hospital, even though he’s showing symptoms of congestive heart failure. At first, he lies and says he doesn’t have the money to pay the massive medical bills. Then it emerges that Charlie has more than $100k tucked away in savings. What gives away Aronofsky’s projection about Charlie’s motivations is that extensive studies have shown why obese patients avoid medical treatment, and it has nothing to do with self-sacrificing messiah-complex bullshit. Doctors are just cruel to fat people — and disproportionately likely to dismiss, demean, and misdiagnose them.
>The movie thinks it’s saying, “You don’t understand; he’s fat because he’s suffering.” But ends up saying, “You don’t understand; we have to be cruel to fat people, because we are suffering.”
>Aronofsky posits his sadism as an intellectual experiment, from the assumption that a 600-pound man is inherently unlovable. That’s not empathy. That’s pity, buried under a layer of contempt.
umm sweeties the wrestler is actually toxic and harmful for real wrestlers and real ballet dancers just dance because they like it not because they're suicidal christ like figures ok???
Elijah Evans
Looks like kino is back on the menu boys
Evan Hall
>fat people are more vulnerable than heroin addicts What timeline is this?
Dylan Carter
You couldn't even cite your source?
Jose Ortiz
Sorry junkies you're not ridiculed enough for your poor life chocies in comparison to me, what's that? You're going through withdrawal? I totally get that I am craving a cheeseburger and a large soda, ugh this sickness amirite? Well I mean yours is a "disease" mine is simply the product of my genetics and there should be no social stigma attached to what I do to my body and it totally isn't my fault and that's why you should pay more taxes to help me when my health inevitably declines.
i'm not surprised by this in the least, this might end up being his worst received movie just because of the subject.
Lucas Price
did a simple copy/past search, this is all from a "polygon" review.
Angel Long
the fact that they felt pity and contempt for the character reveals more about them than it does the film.
Kevin Bailey
this sounds incredibly depressing and uncomfortable to watch, why do people make/consume this type of misery porn?
Joshua Rodriguez
Sounds like those trannies that were getting PTSD from zoom meetings because they had to constantly stare at their disgusting non-passing visage for hours on end every day.
Kevin Lewis
Guilt and shame are excellent ways to influence behavior. Too bad we don't do that anymore.
Christian Young
Because it's Oscar bait.
Daniel Torres
have you ever seen an aaronofsky film before? it's what he's known for.
i tried rewatching requiem and couldn't, but the wrestler's one of my all time favorite movies which i've seen several times.
this doesn't answer your question... i guess there's usually a moral to the story, it's just presented in a brutal fashion, the emotional rollercoaster it puts on is nothing short of entertaining.
Austin Ward
no idea. some movies I watched once and never want to again. Monster, boys don't cry , requiem
don't understand. why make this shit?
Eli Cooper
Sounds great. Anyone who's so uncomfortable with their own weight that they'll be triggered by a film that doesn't pretend morbid obesity is a positive thing should possibly consider watching something else.
abusive behaviour therapy for the morbidly obese doesn't really seem like good entertainment for the general viewer though. people will see it out of boredom/morbid curiosity i guess, i won't.
Jonathan Morales
this smells like double fried burger fingers
Lincoln Allen
Isn't in fun to experience misery when it's not your own, there's no strings attached. It's the same appeal as horror, being scared isn't fun but being scared when there's no real threat sure is.
Mason Brown
Why are they acting like Aronofsky wrote it? It's an adaptation of a play.
Jayden Roberts
this. it's not as if being fat is a superficial quality. it's something you can control. it's like being called smokerphobic if you mention that smoking is dangerous because you're inhaling tar and giving yourself lung cancer
Thomas Cook
just stop typing chud
Anthony Fisher
how direct is the adaptation? i've been of the impression he saw the play and thought he could not expand on it, but touch on it in a way which makes it indistinguishable from his other works.
