Review: WHALEFALL Swims Itself In Tired Thematic Circles

Welp, incoming bummer alert. My enthusiasm for Whalefall’s existence and my reaction to the film don't match. Brian Duffield’s adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ swallowed-by-a-whale thriller was one of my most anticipated flicks this year. Duffield’s a marksman with offbeat horror fare (Spontaneous, No One Will Save You), so if anyone could do this preposterous aquatic nightmare justice, it’d be him (in my mind). But while I’m elated to see a batshit survival riff getting theatrical placement in a time when audiences have fewer and fewer chances to get cinematically weird, the experiment doesn’t quite translate.

Everyone’s favorite bad-luck softboi Austin Abrams stars as Jay Gardiner, a grieving son hellbent on finding his father’s sunken body (Mitt, played by Josh Brolin) off the coast. It’s Jay’s prove-it moment, after years of enduring Mitt’s hard-nosed deep-sea-diving lessons. Unfortunately for Jay, instead of finding Mitt’s waterlogged corpse, a massive sperm whale swallows him as it gulps down a sizable squid. Now inside the whale, Jay must recall every last one of Mitt’s lessons to escape—all from memory.

Whalefall has plenty to admire from a composition standpoint. Kudos to Duffield’s production team for reproducing whale guts, reactive muscles, and mucusy bile as environmental details. Heck yeah for the lighthearted section where Jay befriends a jellyfish (very Wilson, very Castaway). There’s also an underlying current of daddy issues worth prodding, as per Duffield’s signature: taking a kooky genre scenario and Trojan-horsing in a belly full of feelings. It takes guts and gusto even to attempt a Whalefall adaptation, let alone sustain captivation. Duffield shows off as a filmmaker, giving the sea’s dangerous siren call a megaphone.

But in the tethered storytelling, Jay’s frantic wriggling through a sperm whale’s guts and flashbacks where Mitt emotionally and nearly physically abuses his son, Whalefall loses its footing. The film reminds us, over and over, how Jay fled for college and left his cancer-stricken dad behind—a consequence for years of torment. As Jay advances through gastrointestinal chambers, trying to exit his tissuey prison, Duffield presses on the pop-and-kiddo drama with diminishing returns. It’s a lengthy movie, north of an hour and forty-five minutes, that keeps rehashing Jay’s complicated emotions in escalating, eventually delirious ways—a torpedo to momentum.

Abrams isn’t to blame; he answers the script’s requirements. A wetsuit, oxygen tank, mouthpiece, goggles, and other diving equipment impair his abilities beyond the already confined space. He’s best at selling panic and vulnerability, squealing that recognizable “I’m scared as hell” screech, while his quieter moments of contemplation as a wounded boy lack depth against Brolin’s stubborn, overly harsh parent. Abrams plays such an effective weird lil’ guy, which Whalefall barely calls for—a missing dimension from his performance. Not to say that’s what the script needs, but more to explain why Abrams doesn’t impress like in Resident Evil, aside from the obvious costume inhibitors and claustrophobic surroundings.

Frankly, Whalefall lost me in the third act. Jay’s methods can raise excitement, whether MacGyvering resources into usable tools or relying on pointy beaks stripped of squid flesh by stomach acid. Yet the absurdity of Whalefall’s predicament goes beyond “just roll with it” vibes. Nitrogen Narcosis might explain the voices that Jay starts to hear, but that doesn’t negate the feeling of being bludgeoned by the same parental-healing themes that we’ve already endured for so long. What should be a beautiful admission of a father’s misunderstood love and the son who might regret never saying goodbye is … well, that can’t be spoiled. I truly hope anybody struggling with loss can find closure in Jay’s breakdown and understand those (like myself) who were lost along the way.

I wish good things for Whalefall because I want more Whalefalls to be greenlit. The problem is, not every risk pays off. Duffield does his best to justify the unjustifiable, but other times he glosses over fairly important elements (for example, where the illumination comes from). Abrams is a sympathetic victim muzzled by his character’s life-saving oxygen source. The bones for a spectacularly one-of-a-kind adrenaline ride are there, yet something about serious trauma themes inextricably sewn into a whale-gut jailbreak flick never jives at the current calibration. Truly a unique experience, if never as memorable as expected.

Movie Score: 2.5/5