'The Whale': Why I Regret Seeing A Favorite Director's Great Film

Darren Aronofsky's New Masterpiece Was Too Much for PTSD-Crippled Me to Handle.

Sally Shideler

and I never went to the movie theater last year, a fact that devastated me as I looked over the latest Academy Award nominations announced earlier this week and realized I’d seen literally none of them.

The reason is pretty straightforward and predictable to readers of this Substack: the severity of my PTSD has made me afraid to be around large groups of people and further frightened of the enhanced emotional intensity that seeing a movie on the big screen might generate. Just seeing a benign Disney movie on the small screen at home was now enough to “trigger” me emotionally into a state of crying devastation.

But this afternoon Sally and I decided to remedy that lack of theatergoing and give a try to a movie we’d both wanted to see now for months. I was depressed all day and wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go to the 4:10 showing of “The Whale” at the movie theatre of my youth only a five minute drive away. But Brendan Fraser’s performance has been acclaimed across the board and now he’s nominated for Best Actor. And, of course, the film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, one of my most favorite filmmakers for over 20 years now. So I felt an obligation to see this one in a theater if possible rather than just wait for the inevitable appearance on one streaming service or another.

And I feared that just staying home I’d feel terrible anyway, so might as well try and distract myself.

Big mistake, it turns out.

Not because there’s anything at all wrong with the film, of course. It’s Aronofsky’s best movie since 2006’s sci-fi head trip The Fountain, maybe even better, perhaps second only to my former favorite film, 2000’s Requiem for a Dream.

Big mistake on my part because the emotionally intense power of the big screen had already hit me before the trailers had even completed. I was already crying over previews for films that I had no intention of seeing.

So once the tale began of Fraser’s morbidly obese literary teacher, a man trapped in his apartment and struggling with basic tasks, I descended into an absolute mess, perpetually breaking down and sobbing. The story of a man’s slow suicide as he refused to seek help for his food addiction in response to the devastation of losing his life partner and the disappointment of failing to be a serious part of his emotionally troubled daughter’s life was just so perpetually overwhelming.

The emotional intensity of the whole film was practically akin to the unforgettable devastation of the unforgettable climax to Requiem for a Dream. I rarely stopped crying as I took in this great tragedy of a man destroying himself in response to the trauma of losing the man he loved and the family he abandoned for him.

It’s truly a powerful drama with an unforgettable performance by Fraser. Make a point to see it, unless like me, your emotions are so raw and over-intense at the moment that it will be too much to process.