So if the death of a single sperm whale sets in motion centuries of new life, and the sperm whale in Whalefall does everything in its power to swallow, chew, and digest morose scuba diver Jay, then the main takeaway from the movie is that every sperm whale should be hunted down and destroyed, right?
Taut, entertaining, and frightening, Whalefall is a convincing thriller about a man who spends most of his time inside the guts of a whale. It’s like The Martian only with a much less clever protagonist.
Based on a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus, adapting this whale tale is no easy feat. Though other actors—namely Josh Brolin—are shown via flashback, Whalefall is effectively a one-man show, and set in a weird, very squishy environment. Writer/director Brian Duffield nonetheless pulls it off, leaning into the strange, claustrophobic trappings of a whale’s innards in clever, unpredictable ways. The movie also succeeds due to Austin Abrams’ gravitas; he does a remarkably convincing job given that he spends most of his time acting with a scuba mouthpiece between his teeth.
The movie does struggle in the home stretch; I can picture how it could work in the novel, which I haven’t read, but put to screen the climactic attempt to break free feels like a convenient cop-out more than the culmination of Jay’s will to survive. The cross-mingling of Brolin-in-flashback and Jay’s emotional attachment to the whale doesn’t entirely work. And when Duffield takes us out of the whale to show what’s going on externally, it feels dishonest to the claustrophobic nature of the picture—its strongest selling point.
But even still, Whalefall is refreshingly unique and utterly gripping at times. It’s not perfect, but as both a twisted body horror film and survival thriller, the blend of the two makes for a satisfying journey.
But clearly, we must kill all the sperm whales.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.