“Whalefall” is a sentimental story of fathers and sons and giants of the briny blue sea.
When it’s good, it’s “127 Hours” set inside the mouth and throat of a sperm whale, a terrible life test that makes its hero take stock of the person he is and how he relates to others.
Sentiment gets the better of Brian Duffield’s film of Daniel Krause’s novel in the finale, but “sticking the landing” is a common problem in films these days.
Still, the effects are quite good, and the harrowing, claustrophobic nature of the tale puts it over. We know this happens, occasionally, in some species of whales. And so we “work the problem” with our distraught scuba diver. Because it isn’t like cartoons, where Pinocchio can light a match and make the whale sneeze.
Or is it?
Austin Abrams of “Weapons” and the latest “Resident Evil” incarnation is Jay Gardiner, a Monterey, California native taught to dive on the kelp forests off the coast by his hard-driving, PBR drinking and downright abusive father, played by Josh Brolin.
Mitt Gardiner’s the sort of old salt who still calls tourists “lubbers,” and the kind of guy who’d rather strap on a weight belt and take the plunge — sans suit or tanks — in deep water than face the diminished life that lung cancer gives him. Only his buddy (John Ortiz) was aboard that day.
Jay? He’s gone to college and started a post grad career in Iowa. A year after the old man’s suicide, he’s no longer willing to visit the grave with his mom (Elisabeth Shue), just as he wasn’t willing to visit Dad during his later hospitalizations.
But the kid feels guilty enough to want to find some evidence of his father’s remains, to give his mother and two sisters closure. That’s how Jay winds up slipping past beach closures, ignoring warnings, to take a one hour dive on the undersea shelf where his father took his final plunge.
When we see the giant squid, we take it as a warning. Jay doesn’t. Because what’s chasing that squid through the kelp is what swallows him, a great non-white sperm whale of the “Moby Dick” variety.
Jay’s a goner. Or will be.
But in blackouts and hallucinations, Jay hears his father’s lessons about “the Gardiner way” of surviving under the sea — “You don’t listen to me, you die!” “Breathe like you’re asleep.” Jay tries to navigate the upper digestive tract, get his bearings on where the blowhole comes in and fend off the also-swallowed/fighting-for-its-life squid.
Jay’s chatter between breaths eventually turns kind of cutesy. Blame the hypoxia, or director and co-screenwriter Duffield (the alien-invades-a-house “No One Will Save You” was his), but talking to a luminous jellyfish so that it’ll light the way and “we’ll get home” is kind of cringy-cute. The latter acts are entirely too talky for my taste.
But for all that, the situation is properly hopeless and horrific. The father/son sentiment that sinks in for that third act kind of plays. And it’s not like we’re allowed to root against the whale, after all. Or the kid.
Brolin delivers tough love and life above and below the sea insights like Cap’n Quint from “Jaws” without the accent. He never goes over the top, but he makes the guy loveable pretty much in spite of himself.
It’s not “Jaws” in terms of suspense and carnage, and the pathos is lacking as some characters are left undeveloped and some opportunities are missed. A suggestion that “asking for help” is “the bravest act of all” is left dangling, for instance.
But “Whalefall” is still unlike any thriller, at least since “Pinocchio,” a Jonah story with a life helps those who help themselves and don’t give up and a movie that takes all of us a lot closer than we’d ever want to be to getting swallowed by a whale.
Rating: PG-13, peril, violence, bloody images, profanity
Cast: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, John Ortiz and Elisabeth Shue.
Credits: Directed by Daniel Duffield, scripted by Daniel Kraus and Brian Duffield, based on the Daniel Kraus novel. A 20th Century release.
Running time: 1:46
