The Whale

Perhaps the saddest and most emotionally charged film to come out in recent times.

Aronofsky forces you to close yourself in the painful everyday life of an obese man, where his entire existence revolves around his willingness to die. Charlie finds himself surrounded by people who really don't care about him and through him try to fill their own mental voids.

For his friend and personal nurse, it is the last channel of communication with her brother whom she could not save. She constantly feeds Charlie food that purposefully leads him to his death in an attempt to balance her grief for the brother she never got to feed and redeem him at the same time. At the same time, she tries to prevent him from contacting his daughter even though this is his last wish.

The missionary sees profit through Charlie, so he treats him profitably in an attempt to exploit first his illness and second his financial potential.

His daughter, completely indifferent to him until the age of 17, closes every door that Charlie opens trying to get close to her. She insults him constantly, shames him in public and treats him as a way to achieve personal success either financially or in terms of rank.

Finally, the person who has been hurt the most by Charlie, that is his ex, in her brief appearance it seems that she actually cares and is sad for him. Maybe because she might be the only person (alive) who truly loved Charlie...

The film shows in the truest way a rot of today not only in social contexts but mainly in personal ones. As it presents personal gain as an end in itself and death as the last resort for the salvation of individuals.

I am not referring to performances as they were mostly almost flawless with some exceptions regarding the missionary. What is worth mentioning is the identification that seems to be created between the audience and the protagonists regarding the family, the role model of the father and parent-child and parent-to-parent relationships. (or maybe it just happened to me)