The 95th Academy Awards Race: Best Animated Short Film

February 21, 2023February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .
• The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud, producers
• The Flying Sailor, Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby, producers
• Ice Merchants, João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano, producers
• My Year of Dicks, Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon, producers
• An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It, Lachlan Pendragon, producers

Once upon a time, Oscar’s nominees for Best Animated Short film remained bound up behind the locked gates of film festivals. Today, thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix and internet outlets like ShortsTV, regular folks (like you and me) have a chance to actually see these films before the big night, though finding them is something of a hunt.

What is refreshing, watching the five nominated films this year, is how refreshingly adult they seem. Outside of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse, the subject matter seems to reign in a more mature sensibility. Chief among them is My Year of Dicks, a title that drew snickers and raised eyebrows on the morning announcement of the nominees, particularly from presenter Riz Ahmed. There’s also beautiful work dealing with climate change, a near-death experience, the search for a home and an existential awakening. Let’s look at them individually.

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse from AppleTV+ is certainly the year’s most beautifully-made among the nominees. Based on a 2018 best-selling children’s book by Charlie Mackesy and produced with the help of J.J. Abrams Bad Robot Productions, it follows the adventures of a little boy lost in a snow-blanketed forest who bonds with first a very chatty mole (v. Tom Hollander) then a sneaky-eyed fox (v. Idris Elba) and then a white horse (v. Gabriel Byrne) whose third-act revelation is kind of majestic. Mackesy’s journey to this film began when he was posting his sketched illustrations on Instagram about conversations between the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. The book became a massive best-seller and followed with several producers attempting to adapt it for film until it fell into the hands of Cara Speller, who collaborated with Matthew Freud in producing the film under their NoneMore Productions banner. It became their first production

The Flying Sailor is exactly what you expect if you’re familiar with the odd world of animated shorts from Canada. Let’s just say, they have a flavor all their own (and are often very free with nudity). Directed by Amanda Forbis and four-time AS nominee Wendy Tilby, it involves a sailor who is present during the 1917 explosion of a French cargo ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia and goes on a flying existential journey in which he sees his life literally flashing before his eyes. The winner the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, it is the shortest of the nominees, if not the most compelling. And, at just 8-minutes, it is the shortest.

Ice Merchants was the first Portuguese animated film ever to win a prize (The Leitz Cine Discovery Prize) at the Cannes Film Festival. And among this year’s nominees, it might be the most visually striking. It tells the story of a father and son who live in a house on the side of a icebound cliff and, every day, jump down to the village by parachute to sell ice. Sadly, climate change comes into play and they are forced to rethink their line of work. Told without dialogue and with an abstract palette, the film stays in your mind, not just due to its images but in it’s message as well. I think those textures and that message may lead to a victory on Oscar night.

My Year of Dicks may not be the most striking of this year’s nominees but its title certainly raises eyebrows. It is an autobiographical period serio-comedy, based on the true experiences of Pamela Ribon (who went on to write Moana) it uses a lot of different styles of animation mixed with some crummy old VHS footage to tell – in five chapters – the story of a young teenage girl’s journey to lose her virginity and the various loser boyfriends that she considers candidates. Set in the poppy world of 1991 and including elements of the era (including a clip of Henry and June), the movie is a scrapbook of what a hormonal young girl goes through when trying to assess her sexuality. This is the most grounded among the nominees in a field overloaded with flights of fancy

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It is a stop-motion animated film from Australia that kind of picks up where The LEGO Movie leaves off as a schlubby office worker slowly begins to realize that he might actually be living in a stop-motion animated world – information given him by a talking ostrich. It is hard to say that this would be the winner or even the runner-up, but this is certainly the most fun among these nominees.

The Winner: Ice Merchants
The Runner-Up: My Year of Dicks

The 95th Academy Award race: Best Production Design

February 20, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .

• All Quiet on the Western Front, Christian M. Goldbeck (production design); Ernestine Hipper (set decoration)
• Avatar: The Way of Water, Dylan Cole and Ben Procter (production design); Vanessa Cole (set decoration)
• Babylon, Florencia Martin (production design); Anthony Carlino (set decoration)
• Elvis, Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy (production design); Bev Dunn (set decoration)
• The Fabelmans, Rick Carter (production design); Karen O’Hara (set decoration)

All respect to the craftspeople behind Avatar: The Way of Water, but I think they may have to sit this one out. The first film won in this category and it may be seen as a glorified rerun.

Sometimes the best creation of functional space within a movie frame is recreation. It is an overload that dominates this year’s race for Best Production Design as four of the nominees are period recreations. That leaves Avatar: The Way of Water as the odd man out, and also leaves out fantasy epics like Black Panther Wakanda Forever, The Batman and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

In their place are four traditional nominees, those whose designers and craftspeople have recreated times and places that once were in a variety of creative ways. The standout is All Quiet on the Western Front in which Production designer Christian Goldbeck recreated the wet, muddy trenches of World War I on a soundstage in Prague under conations both depressing and oppressive (to effect, of course).

Oddly juxtaposed to the trenches of The Great War is hedonistic Hollywood in the roaring twenties just a decade later in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Production designer Florencia Martin and set designer Anthony Carlino created a portrait of post-WWI Los Angeles that is in a constant state of construction, destruction and renewal by a film industry that is starting to feel its power. Like Chazelle’s La La Land, this is a film designed with the landscape in mind, of the Mission, Spanish and Tudor look of the City of Angels bejeweled and bedazzled by the opulence of a century ago.

Spielberg’s The Fabelmans with production design by two-time Oscar winner Rick Carter (Lincoln and Avatar) and set design by previous winner Karen O’Hara (Alice in Wonderland) may be the most understated of this year’s nominees, recreating the wood and plastic domesticity of 1950s America and the claustrophobic feel of a young man discovering family secrets.

That leaves the frontrunner. Elvis, in which production designer and nine-time nominee Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy and set decorator Bev Dunn stretched from the 1950s to the 1970s recreating the hayride shows where Colonel Parker discovered Elvis to the music-laden world of Beale Street to the stunning recreation of Graceland in his later years. In addition to simply recreating these elements, Martin, Murphy and Dunn gave us the contrast of the rise of Elvis’ career to the mainlining of his post-Comeback years as the oppulence of his surrounds stand in contrast to the weariness of the man himself.

The Winner: Elvis
The Runner-Up: All Quiet on the Western Front

The 95th Academy Awards Race: Best Make-up and Hairstyling

February 19, 2023February 20, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .
• Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová for All Quiet on the Western Front
• Naomi Donne, Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine for The Batman
• Camille Friend and Joel Harlow for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti for Elvis
• Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley for The Whale

This year’s nominees for Best Makeup and Hairstyling reach a broad scope with aging (Elvis), weight gain (The Whale), mud blood and scars (All Quiet), fantasy culture (Wakanda Forever) and uglifying lean and good-looking Colin Ferrell (The Batman). It is hard to call. All of the nominees deserve to be here and each stands out for a particular reason.

The two frontrunners stand out even more. For Elvis, makeup and hairstylist Shane Thomas, makeup artist Angela Conte, and hairstylist Louise Coulston pull actor Austin Butler through the various stages of Presley’s short life, from the dreamy 1950s with his trademark pompadour and dreamy pallor through the later years of the 70s which the withering of his health and mental state.

The other comes courtesy of prosthetic makeup designer Adrien Morot who used all-digital prosthetic make-up to display Brenden Fraiser’s 600-pound weight gain without burying his face in rubber. That gave the actor much more freedom of movement in his face to be able to act without fighting the makeup. The digital effects, said Fraiser in an interview with FilmMonger, allowed Morot to have complete control over the character’s body, how it looked, how it moved, and how it breathed; everything down to the pores.

The Winner: The Whale
The Runner-Up: Elvis

THE 95TH ACADEMY AWARDS RACE: BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .
• Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank and Kamil Jafar for All Quiet on the Western Front
• Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett for Avatar: The Way of Water
• Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands and Dominic Tuohy for The Batman
• Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White and Dan Sudick for
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson and Scott R. Fisher for Top Gun: Maverick

The most refreshing thing about this year’s nominees for Best Visual Effects is that they all have a reason to be here. All have earned their nomination but at least two of them (Avatar and Top Gun) have the distinction of reminding us of pre-streaming, pre-COVID, big-budget summer blockbusters – pure magnets for the multiplex. They, more than any other films released in 2022 reminded us to the wonderment of our cinematic temple.

That celebration of renewal makes Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick the frontrunners and gives no clear indication of which one will win the Oscar. On the level of pure work (at least given what is on the screen) one has to concede that Avatar pulls out ahead. It is a favorite, having dominated the Visual Effects Society Awards this week in every category.

As with all of James Cameron’s films, every dollar is on the screen and nowhere is it more present than Way of Water. The incredible visual effects here – headed by four-time Oscar-winner Joe Letteri – are a stunning array of state-of-the-art visual tricks like the underwater performance capture, global simulation tool set which gives the film a new level of photorealism, and a muscle-based facial animation system known as that Anatomically Plausible Facial System. All of these effects are on the screen all the time, immersing us in a whole world without the distracting seams of the craft.

Of course, the chief competition to Letteri’s team are the folks behind Top Gun: Maverick, headed by production lead Ryan Tudhope which used a lot of practical effects (plate augmentation, matte paintings, etc.) mixed seamlessly with CG effects that gave the film a natural feel and not like cut scenes from a video game.

While Avatar is the major frontrunner here (and deserves to be), there’s a sentiment in favor of Top Gun. It’s old-world meets new-fangled visual effects made for a film that brought us out of our living rooms and back to the theater.

The Winner: Avatar: The Way of Water
The Runner-Up: Top Gun: Maverick

To Leslie (2022)

February 18, 2023February 20, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

Let us, first, deal the controversy over the Oscar campaign that boosted Andrea Riseborough to a Best Actress nomination. I have to admit that I entered into To Leslie with fists balled up, waiting to dismiss her in the wake of the non-nominations for Viola Davis for The Woman King and Danielle Deadwyler for Till which the campaign allegedly forced out of the running. How do I see the virtues through the murk? Were the campaigning practices on the up and up? Does Riseborough even deserve to be here?

All of those objections wash away very early in To Leslie, a tiny character drama about personal ruin, redemption and renewal, led by a brilliant, unsympathetic performance by Riseborough that, yes, deserves to be here. It’s not a good performance, it’s a great performance, deserving of its accolade. If there is any justice given to cinema history, her performance will be named along the likes of Nicholas Cage, Albert Finney, Jack Lemmon and Ray Milland, all of whom gave masterful performances playing alcoholics. She’s that good.

Shedding all pretenses of offering a character who is lovable or even tolerable, Riseborough plays Leslie Rowland, a functioning alcoholic whose life is seen over the opening credits as having been a roller coaster of dissipating hope. Her early life involved graduation from high school, a party lifestyle, marriage, the birth of a son, domestic violence, divorce, and an endless flood of alcohol. Seven years ago she won the local lottery, a jackpot of $190,000 which we see her celebrating on the local news in all her Woo Girl glory. We aren’t surprised that when we catch up with her, the money has been pissed away and her life is a never-ending series of burnt bridges, broken promises and persistent requests from those in her immediate circle to please just go away.

Chances at redemption don’t seem to ring with the bell of clarity, only temporary lodgings and opportunities to get out of the gutter that she will inevitably screw up. Her method of means is to stroll into a local bar and hook up with a guy, not for sex, but for a place to say, possibly money, more booze or whatever goods and services she can ring out of the poor sap before he gets fed up and shows her the door. Early on, she is thrown out of her rental motel, moves in with her now-grown son James (Own Teague) and immediately breaks his one and only rule: don’t drink. Breaking faith with her son for perhaps the umpteenth time, he completely dismisses her from his life.

Of course, the normal tenant for a film like this is to ask the inevitable: How far down does she have to go before she reaches the point of impact, the moment of clarity when she realizes that her luck has completely run out. In these early passages, we cannot like Leslie in any real capacity because she has long since given up any measure of personal pride, any hope that her she will mend her broken promises. It is to Riseborough’s credit that for the film’s first half she plays Leslie as a complete jerk. She isn’t afraid to look foolish, and that’s admirable.

Moving back to her hometown, the place where she won that long-gone jackpot, Leslie hooks up with a former friend Nancy (Alison Janney) and her boyfriend Dutch (Stephen Root) who give her the same rulebook as James and the results are exactly the same – this is routine. Homeless, she is found asleep outside a run-down motel and is mistaken for a woman who has been persistently calling about a job. The genial manager, Sweeney (beautifully played by comedian Marc Maron), gives her the job as a maid. At first, this seems to ring with the same familiarity, but this time something is different as Sweeney’s forgiving good nature eventually becomes something that she can no longer exploit. It’s the longest stay that she’s ever had with anyone and it is perhaps this that brings her to that moment.

In a quietly beautiful moment Leslie sits in a bar after last call and suddenly Willie Nelson’s “Are You Sure This is Where You Want to Be?” starts drifting slowly out of the jukebox. The sad poetry of the song is pointed so directly at Leslie’s life that she snickers. “Is this a joke?” Then the lyrics sink in. The camera draws toward her. There is a stillness in her eyes. She says not a word. She stares off into space, captured by the near-cosmic commentary of the words that she hears. Leslie’s moment of clarity has come at last.

What happens after is hard to discuss without giving away the film’s great drama. Suffice to say that this movie is a journey of a worthless drunk who sees the clouds parting. The Leslie we meet after she has wasted the prize money is not the Leslie that we see as the movie draws to a close. There is a period of growth. The ending perhaps closes too firmly around her situation. It draws to a happy ending the offers very little of the reality that Leslie’s has a lot of mending to do. I admit, I was caught up in it. Yes, it plays too actorly, too convenient, but in my heart it felt earned. Riseborough gives us the portrait of a withering soul whose sense of priority is mended by the reality of what has come before, by the bridges she has burned, and the words of a sad country song.

THE 95TH ACADEMY AWARDS RACE: BEST LIVE ACTION SHORTS

February 17, 2023February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .

• An Irish Goodbye, Tom Berkely and Ross White, producers
• Ivalu, Anders Walter and Rebecca Pruzan, producers
• Night Ride, Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen, producers
• Le Puille (The Pupil), Alfonso Cuarón, Carlo Cresta-Dina and Gabriela Rodriguez, producers
• La Valise Rouge (The Red Suitcase), Cyrus Neshvad, producer

This is the second year in a row that I have actively spent time tracking down the nominated short films in all three categories, and what I’ve noted is that the good ones make you yearn for them to be longer. This year’s quintet of nominees is no different. They range widely in time and place, culture and subject matter – a stolen train, a bucket list, a lost sibling, Christmas at a girl’s boarding school and an escape from an arranged marriage. It makes for a wide birth of time, place and purpose, so lets look at each one individually.

An Irish Goodbye tells the story of two estranged brothers in Northern Ireland (one of whom has Down Syndrome) and their mission to fill their late mother’s bucket list before scattering her ashes. What is refreshing is that it doesn’t choke us with sentimentalism. Actually, this is one of the funniest films of the year at any length as the boys try to complete their mother’s wishes even as they get more and more bizarre.

Ivalu is also about loss, but this time the effects are far darker and more emotional as Pipaluk a young Inuit girl goes on a long journey in search of her titular younger sister into the frozen wastelands of her native Greenland. This is the shortest of this year’s nominees and comes to an ending that is really in the eye of the beholder. Never-the-less, this could end up being a surprise winner given the categories long-history of sticking with films that ebb toward the grim and dark.

Night Ride is my personal favorite among this year’s nominees, and for the second year in a row features a main protagonist who is a little person (as with last year’s The Dress). This time the results are far less emotional and more plot driven. Wide-eyed Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord), a weary passenger, is waiting on the tram but can’t board because the conductor has disembarked in order to visit the toilet. Undaunted, she pushes the doors open anyway and becomes curious about the controls. Suddenly, she is driving. Worse, she finds herself picking up passengers. This potential comedy of errors doesn’t go quite where we expect and arrives at a very satisfying conclusion. Along the way is a tender side-study in acceptance in the face of prejudice. And the ending is a satisfying kick.

Les Pupille (The Pupil) is the longest among the nominees at 38 minutes and, for me, the least satisfying despite the fact that it is a Disney production and one of its producers is Gravity and Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón. The result is a film mixed with one part Madeline, one part The Little Princess and just a teaspoon of Fellini, this odd little film tells the story of a group of young girls living in a boarding school in wartime Italy during the advent season (which leads up to Christmas) but their wide-eyed fidgeting and wonderment is a constant frustration to the nuns who want them to be still and quiet in service to the lord on his birthday. Quite honestly, while this film is engaging it is not exactly compelling, for me anyway. I think the voters may see it differently; this is such a big production and the names attached are too enticing to pass up.

La Valise Rouge (The Red Suitcase) takes on the structure of a thriller as a 16-year-old Iranian girl named Ariane (Nawelle Edad) arrives at Luxembourg Airport to meet her new husband (a marriage arranged by her husband). Ducking into a the ladies room, she removes her head-scarf and decides to defy this union by running away. The rest of the film (which runs 18-minutes) builds tension as this stranger in a strange land ducks and dodges authorities and her would-be husband in order to escape the arrangement. And while the film does have a lot of tension, it ends on a very ‘to be continued’ note, leaving the viewer to wonder what happens next.

The Winner: Les Pupille (The Pupil)
The Runner-up: Ivalu

THE 95TH ACADEMY AWARD RACE: BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

February 16, 2023February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .

• Volker Bertelmann for All Quiet on the Western Front
• Justin Hurwitz for Babylon
• Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin
• Son Lux for Everything Everywhere All at Once
• John Williams for The Fabelmans

What stands out among the nominees for Best Original Score is John Williams who just turned 91 on February 8th and is now receives his 53rd nomination (he’s won five and hasn’t won since Schindler’s List back in 1994). He is joined by three other Oscar veterans: three-time nominee Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inishiren, and two-time nominees Volker Bertelmann for All Quiet on the Western Front and Justin Hurwitz for Babylon. The new kid is Son Lux for Everything, Everywhere All At Once.

This is a contest that comes down to the veteran and the new kid. Williams is a legend, of course, and that may throw the voting songwriters (the guild that votes for this award) into a more sentimental frame of mind. Williams is almost an Oscar afterthought but the voters may realize that his time is short and honoring him one last time is now or never. Out of his 53 nominations, 18 of them have been for films directed by Steven Spielberg, including this year for his sentimental journey soundtrack for The Fabelmans.

His chief competition is the frontrunner, Son Lux, a three-member L.A.-based experimental band consisting of 44 year-old Ryan Lott and thirty-somethings Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang. They break tradition as being the rare group nominated for BOS, a category that usually favors lone nominees. But their work stands out. It’s an experimental mix of modern synth-beats added to traditional Chinese opera that makes for a twisting experience – much like the film. I predict a sweep for Everything, Everywhere All At Once and I think they will be part of it.

The winner: Son Lox for Everything, Everywhere All At Once
The Runner-up: John Williams for The Fabelmans

THE 95TH ACADEMY AWARD COVERAGE: BEST SOUND

February 15, 2023February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The Nominees are . . .

• Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel and Stefan Korte for All Quiet on the Western Front
• Julian Howarth, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Dick Bernstein, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers and Michael Hedges for Avatar: The Way of Water
• Stuart Wilson, William Files, Douglas Murray and Andy Nelson for The Batman
• David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson and Michael Keller for Elvis
• Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor for Top Gun: Maverick

Let’s look at the field by process of elimination, but also recognize that there isn’t a slouch in this group,

First is Avatar: The Way of Water which is rich with the sounds of the jungle and then with the water. The real achievement though is credited to Julian Howarth who redesigned how the sound is captured. Normally, the sound mixer records the sound as the scene is being shot. But Howarths innovation was to provide sound during the mo-cap sessions by surrounding the stage with speakers and, on his keyboard, provided the sounds of water and jungle, thereby giving the actors a sense of their environment. What he calls “on-the-spot sound design.”

Next is The Batman which offers something new to the overcrowded superhero field. Most of these film (even the good ones) focus their sound design on explosions, impacts, thunderous cacophony. This film is different. Yeah, there’s a terrific car chase in the rain, but even in that, the sound is based on gravity and weight. What is more impressive are the ambient sounds created by supervising sound designers William Files and Douglas Murray, sound mixer Stuart Wilson and re-recording mixer Andy Nelson. Their work captured the inner-city soundscapes of the wrecked hellhole that is Gotham City, turning it from just a set-designer’s dream into a real place.

Elvis was a terrific technical achievement in trying to recreate the sound that raised a fury in the 1950s and then his teen-pop sound in the 1960s and the more operatic Vegas show style of the 1970s. What is unique is that each is different to its era, utilizing vintage microphones and sound equipment to get the sound just right.

All Quiet on the Western Front might seem light to most traditional of this year’s nominees, recreating the sounds of the World War I battlefields as a hellscape of bombs and bullets. What is unique is that supervising sound editor supervising sound editors Markus Stemler and Frank Kruse and sound editor Viktor Prášil created a sense of disorientation. The best example comes at the film’s opening when protagonist Paul regains consciousness and hears the distant sounds of the war – bombs, gunshots, screaming – and then the sounds become louder as he comes around. As he goes about collecting the dog tags of his dead comrades, we hear the dirt under his feet, his breath quickened by fear. Almost literally, we are put in Paul’s shoes. The sounds of war are impressive but the impact on the individual is an achievement all its own. So too are the moments of quiet contemplation when the war can be heard over the horizon, a reminder that it is ever-present.

But the one that I think will get the voter’s attention is Top Gun: Maverick. It may not seem like much but this film too is an immersive experience, albeit radically different in its purpose, combining the talents of production sound mixer Mark Weingartin, supervising sound editor James Mather, sound designer Al Nelson and re-recording mixers Mark Taylor and Chris Burdon to create the world inside the cockpit the includes not only the sounds of the controls but also breathing, wind against the jets and turbo engines.

So, who’s going to win? I think Top Gun: Maverick. This was the film that reminded everyone of the importance of going out to our cinematic temple and the immersion of that film is most of the reason why.

The Winner: Top Gun: Maverick
The Runner-Up: All Quiet on the Western Front

The 95th Academy Awards Race: Best Cinematography

February 14, 2023February 18, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

The 95th Academy Award nominees: ‘The Whale’

February 10, 2023February 7, 2023 ~ overthinkingoscar ~ Leave a comment

Nominations:
• Best Actor in a Leading Role – Brendan Fraiser
• Best Supporting Actress – Hong Chau
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Darren Aronofsky doesn’t make movies about lovable characters. They are usually so steeped in personal gloom that you have to work to find their center. That was true of Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream, Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Jennifer Lawrence in mother! and even Russell Crowe in Noah, a film that I did not like. They’re always complicated, always layered, always interesting and, of course, always soaked in some form of horrifying family discourse.

I think he’s topped himself with The Whale, based on a 2012 stage play by Stephen D. Hunter about an obese shut-in named Charlie who works from home as an online English teacher and, for reasons of his own, never seeks medical help. He’s dying, and through varying circumstances ends up reacquainting with his rebellious teenage daughter Ellie (‘Stranger Things’s Sadie Sink).

The movie is like an onion, peeling back the layers of its characters, their hidden motives (some reasonable, others seemingly manufactured) but there’s always a sense of human beings in the room. Everyone has an agenda, from Thomas the yeah-God Jesus freak that keeps coming by, to Dan the unseen pizza guy, to Charlie’s friend Liz (supporting actress nominee Hong Chau) who is his caretaker, confidant and conscience.

Reaction has been mixed on The Whale, but I see it as Aronofsky’s most literate and human work, despite his usual bizarre flourishes (read: the movie’s ending). Still I got caught up in it. It isn’t just a pity show for a man with a weight problem. Charlie comes off as a real person, a layered person, a sensitive person with strange motives.