the whale essay

Search Please fill out this field.
Newsletters
Sweepstakes

The Whale ending explained: Brendan Fraser breaks down Charlie and Ellie's final scene

Fraser explains his interpretation of what the last exchange between Charlie and Ellie (Sadie Sink) means for both characters: "He's liberated."

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Whale .

It's easy to get swept up in the emotions of Darren Aronofsky 's searing drama The Whale , which follows Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a reclusive, 600-pound literature professor struggling, in the last days of his life, to reconnect with the teenage daughter, Ellie ( Sadie Sink ), whom he abandoned years prior. The film's conclusion, however, might be more difficult for some viewers to read, so we asked Fraser and screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter to break down what the final scene means for Charlie's journey.

The film slowly builds to a key moment for the father-daughter pair, after Charlie spends most of the movie defending Ellie's sporadic outbursts and prickly, wounded disposition — particularly to his longtime caregiver and friend, Liz ( Hong Chau ). Charlie maintains that Ellie, like most people, has an innate capacity for empathy, and regularly heralds one of her blunt, years-old school essays criticizing the classic novel Moby Dick . He see it as a signifier of her purity, honesty, and unbridled passion. Still, Ellie remains skeptical of Charlie during most of the film's running time.

"Ellie torments him, when she cases him out the fist time she sees him," Fraser observes, noting a specific piece of blocking. "You notice that she stands behind him. She knows he can't look over his shoulder. She's torturing him a little bit. She's cross, she's angry for the sadness she feels, and that's how this 17-year-old brilliant kid comports herself. She goads him into taking to his feet, knowing well that he likely can't and that it would make him very uncomfortable to do that without even having the assistance of his walker — but she takes it from him anyway and makes him prove himself, and he can't."

That scene, Fraser says, is key to understanding the film's conclusion, which brings Ellie and Charlie together for a genuine connection, as she reads the essay aloud. Again, Charlie attempts to rise up and walk toward her. That's where things get fantastical, as Fraser calls the final sequence an act of "contrition" for Charlie, in which he's "liberated" after finally breaking through her defensive armor, reaffirming to Ellie that he sees her for the person she is — and always was.

"It's important because it's a Herculean effort that he makes to even get to his feet," Fraser says. "For him to finally break through to her, humble himself before her, and let her know that he made a mistake and is sorry for it. While his life has not physically ended in that moment, I think that he knows he doesn't need to live any longer, which is why he takes off his breather, he's got her reading the essay, and he does take to his feet like three Olympic dead-lifters, takes his baby steps to his baby, and in that beautiful two-shot, a great white light appears, and they look skyward. Depending on your belief system, spiritually or otherwise, we see that Charlie — with a touch of magic realism — finally does fly."

Screenwriter Hunter calls the run-up a "hero journey where he gets the elixir."

"He's struggling this entire film to put a mirror up to his daughter to say, 'This is who you are,' and in those final moments, that mirror is this essay," Hunter explains. "When she looks at it, she can't deny turning it in and getting a D, but then, here's her father, all these years later, being like, 'This is the best essay I've ever read.' At long last, he's the only person who sees her, and she knows it."

As for whether Hunter feels Charlie is actually walking in the final shot, he says it's open for interpretation.

"I think it's an apotheosis — you can take it how you want it," he says. "In the play, the way I wrote it is that you hear a sound of waves and they slowly intensify through that scene, so, there's a way to read it both ways. It wants to be miraculous, either literally or figuratively, and I think you can watch it either way."

You can watch and interpret for yourself: The Whale is now in theaters nationwide via A24 . See Fraser explain the movie's ending in the video above.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly 's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

More From Decider

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal...

Brooke Shields Flashed Her ‘Mother of the Bride’ Co-Star Benjamin...

Andy Cohen Reveals Sarah Jessica Parker's Reaction When He Suggested Rosie...

Anne Hathaway's 'Tonight Show' Interview Hits An Awkward Snag After The...

11 Best New Movies on Netflix: May 2024's Freshest Films to Watch

John Green’s ‘Turtles All the Way Down’ Cameo Is a Treat for His...

Spider-Man Swings onto 'X-Men '97' — But This Isn't Just Any Spider-Man

‘The Whale’ Ending Explained: Brendan Fraser’s Uncomfortable Drama Ends With a Final, Cruel Tragedy

Where to stream:.

To say The Whale is a difficult watch is the understatement of the century. The movie—which is now available to purchase on digital platforms like Amazon Prime Video —is a relentlessly uncomfortable and cruel two hours documenting the (spoiler alert!) final week of a 600-pound man, who has isolated himself from the world, and is now facing imminent death due to health issues caused by his weight.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky—the same man who brought you uncomfortable, divisive movies like Black Swan and mother! — The Whale is based on a 2012 play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter. Hunter, who also adapted the screenplay for film, based the story on his own experience with obesity in college. “I know many people who are big, happy, and healthy, but I wasn’t,” Hunter said in an interview for the films’ press notes. “I had a lot of unprocessed emotions from attending a fundamentalist Christian school where my sexuality came to bear in an ugly way, and that emerged in an unhealthy relationship with food. When I started writing The Whale, I think it all just came pouring out of me.”

Thus , The Whale features many hard-to-watch sequences of binge-eating junk food, beads of sweat rolling down Brendan Fraser’s heavily make-upped face, and Fraser struggling to move around in a squishy, rolling fat suit. If you manage to make it to the end of the film, you’ll be met with a moving but ambiguous conclusion. Don’t worry, Decider is here to help. Read on for an analysis of The Whale plot summary and ending explained, including what happens at the end of The Whale , and whether Charlie dies. Major spoilers ahead.

The Whale plot summary:

We meet Charlie (Brendan Fraser) as he is giving a virtual lecture for an online college English course. He keeps his camera off, telling his students that his webcam is broken. In reality, he is ashamed of his appearance as an obese, 600-pound man. Charlie can’t walk on his own and never leaves his house. Through the course of the film, he is visited by several recurring characters. There is Liz (Hong Chau), Charlie’s nurse friend who cares for him. Liz informs Charlie that his blood pressure is at a dangerous level, and that he needs to go to the hospital, or he will very likely die of congestive heart failure by the end of the week. Charlie refuses to go, citing the fact that he has no money and can’t afford the hospital bills. He instead decides to spend his last week of life attempted to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

Another visitor of Charlie’s is Thomas, a door-to-door missionary from an evangelical church called New Life. Thomas walks in on Charlie while he is hyperventilating and at risk of having a heart attack. Charlie thrusts an essay about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick into Thomas’s hands and instructs him to read it. After Charlie calms down, Thomas asks why Charlie asked him to read it. “I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to hear it one last time,” Charlie says. “It’s a really good essay.”

Charlie is also visited by his teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), whom he hasn’t seen since she was 8 years old. Charlie, a gay man, left Ellie and her mom when Ellie was 8 because he fell in love with one of his (adult) students. Charlie tells Ellie he wanted to be part of her life, but that her mother forbade him from seeing her. Ellie is an exceptionally angry teenager and is exceedingly cruel to her father. When Charlie learns that Ellie is in danger of flunking out of high school, he offers to help her with her upcoming essay. He also offers to pay her to spend time with him—all the money he has, which is over $100,000.

brendan fraser

Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lawrence And More Slated As Oscars 2024 Presenters

Stream it or skip it: ‘doom patrol’ season 4 part 2 on max, the last hurrah for dc’s crazy jane, elasti-woman, robotman, negative man, and cyborg, the saddest tv cancellations of 2023… so far, leonardo dicaprio, martin scorsese’s ‘killers of the flower moon’ gets 9-minute standing ovation at cannes.

Thomas the missionary returns to Charlie’s home because he believes he was sent by God at the exact right moment to help Charlie. Liz is upset by Thomas’s presence and tells him to leave Charlie alone. We learn that Liz’s brother, Alan, was Charlie’s romantic partner, as well as a member of the New Life church. Liz blames New Life for her brother’s extreme unhappiness—because he was told his sexuality went against the will of God—which eventually led to Alan jumping off a bridge and killing himself. Charlie, in his grief, began binge-eating in response.

Charlie’s health is rapidly declining. Liz brings Charlie a wheelchair to help him move around his house. Ellie once again visits Charlie and demands that he write her essay assignment. Charlie agrees. Despite how cruel Ellie is to Charlie, he insists she is an amazing person. Ellie slips Charlie sleeping pills, and while he is unconscious, Thomas the missionary once again comes to visit, and Ellie threatens to kill her father if Thomas doesn’t smoke pot with her. She snaps an incriminating photo of Thomas, and then confronts him: She knows he’s not from New Life, because she knows that New Life no longer has door-to-door missionaries.

Thomas confesses that while he used to be a missionary—after his parents sent him away to the church when they discovered him smoking pot–he grew frustrated with the church’s lack of social outreach and felt he wasn’t truly helping people. After a blow-out argument with the pastor, Thomas stole all of the church’s petty cash and left. He confesses to Ellie that he is almost out of money, but is too afraid to go home. Ellie secretly records his confession.

Liz and Ellie’s mother, Mary (Samantha Morton), show up and discover that Ellie has drugged her father. After Liz coaxes Charlie back to consciousness, she finds out that Charlie, despite his protests about hospital bills, does, in fact, have money. He’s just been saving all of it to give to Ellie. Liz is furious that Charlie has refused to buy the medical care and equipment he needs, and storms out. Ellie storms out too, telling her dad to “just fucking die already.” Charlie gives Ellie the essay she asked for before she leaves.

Charlie and Mary talk about their life and marriage. Charlie shares a memory of going to the beach with Ellie and Mary and swimming in the ocean. Mary tells Charlie one reason she kept Charlie away from Ellie is that she was afraid Ellie would hurt him. Mary says Ellie is “evil,” and shows Charlie a cruel picture of himself that Ellie posted on social media, mocking him. Charlie continues to insist that Ellie is amazing and that she’s a great writer. Mary leaves in tears, and Charlie, also in tears, tells her that he has to believe he’s done one good thing in his life, aka Ellie.

After Mary leaves, Charlie goes on a binge eating session that ends in him vomiting. He rashly posts a prompt on his students’ online message board, challenging them to write something honest. Thomas visits one last time and shows Charlie a Bible passage highlighted in Alan’s old Bible. Thomas believes Alan died because he turned his back on God and gave into “the flesh,” aka homosexuality. Charlie, for once, stands up for himself, and more or less tells Thomas to piss off. Thomas informs Charlie that Ellie sent his recorded confession to his church and parents, and that both parties forgave him, meaning he can finally go home.

In his final webinar class, Charlie reveals he has been fired. He reads some of his students’ responses to his prompt to be honest. Moved by their honesty, he vows to be honest in return and turns on his web camera to show them his entire body. The students react in shock and disgust.

The Whale ending explained:

On the last day of his life, Liz returns to Charlie to take care of him. Even though she is angry, she loves him. Charlie tells Liz that he believe Ellie ratted Thomas out because she wanted to help him, because, “people are amazing.” Ellie storms into the house, angry with Charlie because she failed her essay assignment. When she sees the shape Charlie is in, she uncertainly asks Liz what’s wrong. “He’s dying,” Liz replies. Ellie says to call an ambulance, but Charlie replies, “No.” Ellie asks to speak to Charlie alone, and although Liz doesn’t want to leave Charlie, she agrees. Liz seems to realize that she is saying goodbye to Charlie, and tells him she’ll wait downstairs.

Ellie demands to know why Charlie failed her assignment and accuses him of purposefully screwing her over. Charlie, who is beginning to hyperventilate, tells Ellie that he didn’t write the essay—she did. It’s an essay on Moby Dick that Ellie wrote in 8th grade. Ellie’s mom sent the essay to Charlie, and Charlie believes it’s the best essay he’s ever read. Charlie sobs that he is sorry for leaving Ellie. As he begins to actively have a heart attack, Ellie turns to leave. Charlie begs her to read her essay to him, and she relents. As Ellie reads about the whale in Moby Dick , Charlie stands to his full height, entirely on his own. (Get it? He’s the whale!)

With a massive effort, Charlie walks toward Ellie. When Ellie reads Charlie’s favorite line in the essay—”And I felt saddest of all when I read the boring chapters, that were just descriptions of whales, because I knew the author was trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while,”—Charlie imagines stepping into the ocean, all those years ago when he wasn’t so obese.

Ellie steps toward Charlie. She begins to read the next line of the essay, “This book made me think about my own life, and then it made me glad for my–” but she cuts off. Charlie and Ellie smile at each other. Then with a gasp, Charlie floats off the floor and into a bright white light. With that, the movie ends.

Does Charlie die in The Whale ?

Yes. While one could argue that The Whale ending is up for interpretation, my interpretation is that Charlie’s feet leaving the ground is a clear metaphor for Charlie’s body leaving this earth, aka, that he has died of heart failure. The movie has made it clear throughout that Charlie only has about a week to live, and is careful to denote each day of the week. Liz said at the beginning of the final scene that Charlie is dying.

This is slightly different from how the stage version of The Whale ends, with a hard cut to black. But in an interview with editor Andrew Weisblum for the film’s press notes, it seems clear that the filmmakers intended this scene to indicate “the end” of Charlie’s life, and that it mirror the first scene that Charlie has with Ellie. “It was important to set that up structurally, these two moments that reflect each other—where in one Charlie fails and in the other, he succeeds. The cutting patterns and shot choices of the two scenes are very similar. But the power of that final scene is that we know Charlie is facing the end.”

What was the end of Ellie’s essay in The Whale ?

But what about that final line of Ellie’s essay, that we never got to hear? What is she glad for? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. The full essay is never read in the movie and always cuts off before that final line.

While we never get to hear what it was that Ellie was glad for in her own life, it’s clear that this is the most impactful part of the essay for Charlie. Did she write that she was glad family, perhaps? Or is she glad her dad left her when he did, to spare her his sad story? Or for the fact that she has books to read, to escape her own sad story, just for a little while?

It’s up to you to fill in the blank. Because the movie is so bleak, I choose to interpret it as Ellie feeling grateful for both her mother and her father, who love her. I just need Charlie to know that Ellie was grateful for his love. He needed to know he did one good thing with his life, he said. Maybe he’s clinging to that essay because the final line, written by Ellie, confirms that he did.

Ending Explained
Prime Video

'The View's Sunny Hostin Covers Her Face In Embarrassment As Whoopi Goldberg Asks If She'd Let Sherri Shepherd Date Her 21-Year-Old Son

Does 'Yellowstone' Return Tonight? 'Yellowstone's Season 5, Part 2 Premiere Date Info, Kevin Costner Updates, And More

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ on VOD, in Which Guy Ritchie Directs A Fictional Spin on a Real-Life WWII Era Secret Spy Mission

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Andy Cohen Reveals Sarah Jessica Parker's Reaction When He Suggested Rosie O'Donnell Take Over As Che Diaz In 'And Just Like That'

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal About Her Exes: "Wow"

The Whale Ending Explained: Step Into The Light

"The Whale," is a controversial and devastating film that seems to be going in an obvious direction, but a growing undercurrent of hope leaves viewers guessing about where exactly our protagonist will end up. Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is an online schoolteacher whose binge eating has cost him his mobility, his health, the possibility of regular human interaction, and any semblance of normalcy. When he finally starts suffering from congestive heart failure and refuses to go to the hospital, he is given a prognosis of just a few remaining days. Charlie doesn't change his ways or seek proper medical attention, but he does finally reach out to his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink).

At their first meeting in years, the callous teenager challenges her father to walk toward her without the assistance of his walker. He fails at first, but in the final moments of the movie, he actually succeeds. As he makes his way to her, she reads him an analytical essay about Moby Dick that she wrote as a child. She does so at Charlie's request — he recites it to himself often throughout the film. He even has another character read it to him during his first health scare at the beginning of the movie because he wants it to be the last thing he hears before he dies.

Charlie makes his way to where his daughter stands in his doorway before levitating and disappearing into his fondest memory of his family. In this memory, he stands on the ocean shore with his feet in the water, while his young daughter plays in the sand and her mother watches on.

So what exactly does this memory mean? Why is it the last image of the Academy Award-winning film? Does Charlie really die in the end? And why is Charlie so fixated on this essay when it doesn't have any apparent relationship to his own life?

What you need to remember about the plot of The Whale

A few things remain sacred to Charlie as he slips into complete isolation and a fatal health crisis. One is Ellie, whom he hasn't seen in years before the events of the film. He remains connected to her through this essay. He is particularly fixated on a line where she says that "Moby Dick" allowed her to "think about my own life." This follows her analysis that Ahab thinks killing the whale will make his life better, but the whale is completely emotionless. This suggests that Ellie views her father as her own kind of whale — not because of his size, but because of his estrangement. She thinks that he is the cause of all the pain in her life and that he doesn't care about her at all, having not heard from him in years.

Charlie makes strides in repairing his relationship with Ellie over the course of the film, but he is scared of re-entering her life after his family fell apart when he left his wife for one of his male students. This love, which once offered solace, quickly became its own source of tragedy for Charlie when severe depression and emotional turmoil led his partner into life-threatening anorexia and suicide. Charlie avoids memories of his late partner, even the happy ones, and keeps them hidden away in a locked room or tucked into a bookshelf. But he does allow himself to ruminate on a happy memory of his family. Even though he is kept at bay by his affair, a custody battle, and eventually his weight gain, he knows they are out there living their lives still and thus allows himself to preserve a happy memory of them at the beach.

What happens at the end of The Whale?

At the end of "The Whale," Charlie makes a triumphant march to his daughter as she reads to him from the essay that he loves so much. Despite being on his deathbed (or perhaps death couch is more accurate), he manages to achieve a physical feat that he was unable to do days earlier. He rips off the tubes that aid his breathing, pushes himself to his feet, and trudges towards Ellie as she reads out the words he knows by heart. Just as he reaches her in the doorway, he ascends. His feet fly off the ground, his eyes turn to the heavens, and he is transported back to that peaceful day at the beach. In this memory, he is down to a healthier weight again. His feet are in the ocean, his young daughter plays in the sand, and his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton) haunts the edge of the frame like a specter, watching on.

So what exactly does this mean? Where is Charlie going? And did he actually get up and walk towards Ellie at all? The answer might seem cut and dry, but there are actually a few competing theories.

Did Charlie die in the end?

The most obvious conclusion to draw from this ending is that Charlie has perished from the congestive heart failure that is slowly killing him over the course of the film. The movie catalogs his final days, beginning on a Monday when his dear friend and nurse, Liz (Hong Chau), says he will be dead by the weekend. Although we don't see Charlie's dead body or his funeral, we know he is on the brink of death and that the strain he puts on his body by walking towards his daughter will likely cause his heart to finally fail. However, the ending is slightly ambiguous.

Part of the reason why Charlie's death is questionable is because it's unclear whether he wants to die or not. There are moments where he indulges dangerously in junk food and others where he stops himself, at least momentarily. His commitment to over-eating and reluctance to seek medical attention suggests that he is suicidal, but certain things hint at an optimism or will to live. He puts out apples for a bird that comes to his windowsill every day, something Ellie notices right away. Charlie also makes a last-ditch effort to reconnect with his daughter, and in getting to know her, finds a newfound love of humanity in general, declaring that, "People are amazing!" It almost seems too cruel that this reconnection with Ellie and subsequent optimism would come too late — when his body was too far gone to be saved — and that he would die anyway. So maybe that's not what happened.

Does Charlie go to heaven?

In Charlie's final moment, he retreats again to a memory of himself and his family on the beach. This memory, which Charlie references in conversation with his ex-wife in a previous scene, was a true moment of peace and clarity of spirit for him — perhaps the last he ever felt. So, is this heaven? The answer might guide the viewer as to whether or not Charlie died or not.

It's interesting that Charlie would end up in some version of heaven because of his complicated relationship with religion. Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a missionary from a local New Life church is a frequent guest at Charlie's house in the week leading up to his death. Charlie's late boyfriend Alan was the son of the head of the church and a devout follower. When his father found out about Alan's relationship with Charlie, he exiled him from the church, which is what sent Alan into a depressive episode that eventually led to his death. Charlie was at odds with Alan's faith when he was alive and remains at odds with it after his passing. This religion vehemently rejects homosexuality and insists that a sinner like Alan or Charlie would never get to heaven. The missionary encourages Charlie to deny his sexuality and bodily sins and ask for God's forgiveness so that he might gain salvation in the afterlife, but he refuses. How ironic would it be if Charlie ended up in a blissful eternity anyway?

The religious themes of the movie suggest that Charlie did in fact die and go to heaven in the end, but they may have just alluded to a kind of spiritual peace or death of ego that does not necessarily imply a physical death.

What has the cast and crew of The Whale said about the ending?

Brendan Fraser, who plays Charlie in "The Whale," has a theory about the film's ending that might surprise you. He described the ending to Entertainment Weekly and, in doing so, revealed that he does not think his character perishes in the final moments of the film:

"[I]t's a Herculean effort that he makes to even get to his feet. For him to finally break through to [Ellie], humble himself before her, and let her know that he made a mistake and is sorry for it. While his life has not physically ended in that moment, I think that he knows he doesn't need to live any longer, which is why he takes off his breather, he's got her reading the essay, and he does take to his feet like three Olympic dead-lifters, takes his baby steps to his baby, and in that beautiful two-shot, a great white light appears, and they look skyward. Depending on your belief system, spiritually or otherwise, we see that Charlie — with a touch of magic realism — finally does fly."

The white light and skyward look, along with the state of Charlie's health, definitely suggest that this is the moment his life "physically" ends, despite Fraser's interpretation. However, Charlie's march toward his daughter could be interpreted as a purely symbolic moment in itself.

"I think it's an apotheosis — you can take it how you want it," added playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who also adapted the work for the screen. "In the play, the way I wrote it is that you hear a sound of waves and they slowly intensify through that scene, so, there's a way to read it both ways. It wants to be miraculous, either literally or figuratively, and I think you can watch it either way."

The play had a surprising alternate ending

As it turns out, the choice to end the film with Charlie standing on the beach was entirely the idea of director Darren Aronofsky. The production of the play makes reference to Charlie's aforementioned memory through the sound of waves, but it ends abruptly, mid-sentence, with Charlie making his way to Ellie. Hunter gave his candid thoughts on Aronofsky's take on the ending in an interview with Digital Spy :

"The way the play ends is, Ellie has the last line of the essay: 'It made me feel glad for my ...' And she's cut off by the stage direction — 'a sharp intake of breath'. 'Charlie looks up, and has a sharp intake of breath. End of play.' I actually didn't know about the beach scenes until I saw a rough cut. It was just kind of an incredible surprise. I had no idea until I saw the rough cut, and I was so intensely moved by it. I was just like, 'Oh my God, that's perfect.' [...] In the play, it's the one moment that I script as he's giving that monologue about the Oregon coast that the sound of waves comes in. In the play, it's heightened, and expands a little bit. I think Darren [Aronofsky] took that idea, and kind of ran with it, in this gorgeous way."

Even though the movie ends in a slightly less ambiguous place than the stageplay, there is clearly still room for interpretation. Just like in the original piece from which it is adapted, the film dissolves its realism in this final scene and moves to a place of symbolism or magical realism. No matter how you interpret the ending of "The Whale," it certainly feels like a conclusive end to Charlie's story.

"The Whale" is currently available to stream on Showtime through Paramount Plus, and for rent on all the major streaming platforms.

Screen Rant

Brendan fraser shares his interpretation of the whale’s final scene.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Zack Snyder’s DCEU Superman Trilogy Ending Would’ve Fixed His “God-Like” Movie Criticism

Why lucy gray wasn't a tribute option in hunger games: catching fire's quarter quell, i really hope this story about kurt russell's tombstone cameo plan for kevin costner is true.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Whale. Brendan Fraser breaks down his interpretation of The Whale 's ending after it concludes on an ambiguous note. The Whale premiered on December 9 and is an emotional psychological drama starring Fraser. It has been touted as Fraser's comeback film after he disappeared from the Hollywood scene for many years. The Whale follows Charlie (Fraser), a morbidly obese man who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). The film has received mixed-to-positive reviews so far, with critics being nearly unanimous in their praise of Fraser's performance. However, the film has received some criticism for director Darren Aronofsky's melodramatic adaption of Samuel D. Hunter's 2012 play of the same name.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly , Fraser and Hunter (who also wrote the film's screenplay) shed some light on the ambiguous ending of The Whale . For many viewers, the scene may seem tragic and to others, the religious undertones may evade their understanding. Hence, Fraser and Hunter discuss how they interpreted the ending and how it was a hero's ending for Charlie, one in which he found liberation. Check out their statements below:

Fraser: It's important because it's a Herculean effort that he makes to even get to his feet. For him to finally break through to her, humble himself before her, and let her know that he made a mistake and is sorry for it. While his life has not physically ended in that moment, I think that he knows he doesn't need to live any longer, which is why he takes off his breather, he's got her reading the essay, and he does take to his feet like three Olympic dead-lifters, takes his baby steps to his baby, and in that beautiful two-shot, a great white light appears, and they look skyward. Depending on your belief system, spiritually or otherwise, we see that Charlie — with a touch of magic realism — finally does fly. Hunter: He's struggling this entire film to put a mirror up to his daughter to say, 'This is who you are,' and in those final moments, that mirror is this essay, when she looks at it, she can't deny turning it in and getting a D, but then, here's her father, all these years later, being like, 'This is the best essay I've ever read.' At long last, he's the only person who sees her, and she knows it.

Related: The Whale Confirms Sadie Sink Is Stranger Things' True Breakout Star

What Happens In The Whale's Ending

Fraser and Hunter's explanation of the ending will be welcomed by some, as The Whale 's final scene is a bit difficult to understand on paper. Before the ending can fully be explained, Fraser reveals that viewers needed to understand an earlier scene in the film. That particular Whale scene was one in which Ellie and Charlie first begin spending time together after Charlie agrees to help her write an essay for school. Ellie, still hurt at being abandoned by her father, tries to hurt him back by challenging him to walk. Unfortunately, at that point in The Whale , he can't stand or walk, and is therefore unable to prove himself to her.

In the final scene of The Whale , Ellie confronts Charlie about switching out her essay with an essay on Moby Dick she wrote in 8th grade. Charlie switched out the essays because he finally saw her and understood that the latter essay was an expression of herself. Though Ellie is defensive at first, the two end up attempting to connect one last time. To do so, Charlie asks Ellie to read the essay to him. As she does so, despite his health failing him, Charlie manages to stand and walk toward her. He is finally able to prove himself to her. However, the effort of walking is more than Charlie can withstand, and he dies as Ellie reads the essay. In the end, a bright light seemingly shines down, which could be interpreted literally as Charlie ascending to heaven or figuratively to prove that he has been redeemed.

Ultimately, The Whale 's ending has many layers to it, and it is tragic in some sense. However, Fraser and Hunter point out that the underlying theme is redemption and liberation. In the end, Charlie is willing to accept his death because he has accomplished the one goal that he had, which was to prove to his daughter that she is seen and understood. It is also an extremely touching portrayal of the relationship between a parent and a child. Even though Charlie failed Ellie in many ways, he proved that his parental instinct and love for his daughter never faded as he was able to see the value and the piece of his daughter within a years-old 8th grade essay. According to Fraser and Hunter, The Whale 's ending isn't ambiguous or tragic but hopeful for all the parents out there seeking redemption.

Next: Why The Whale Is Controversial, Despite Brendan Fraser's Comeback

The Whale (2022)

‘The Whale’ ending explained: what happened to Charlie?

Spoilers ahead

Brendan Fraser has swept awards season with his critically acclaimed performance in The Whale , which has a particularly emotional climax.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film follows morbidly obese literature teacher Charlie (Fraser) as he attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), who is torn up after Charlie left her and her mother to start a relationship with a man years earlier.

READ MORE: Brendan Fraser: “I can’t get rid of the feeling that I’m a fraud”

Alongside Fraser and Sink, the film stars Hong Chau as Charlie’s best friend and nurse Liz, Ty Simpkins as Christian missionary Thomas and Samantha Morton as Ellie’s mother Mary.

What happens at the end of The Whale ?

As Charlie nears death in his home, Ellie confronts him after receiving a low grade for an essay he’d rewritten. Charlie explains that he replaced her rewritten essay with the Moby Dick essay Ellie had previously written when she was in eighth grade – deeming it the most honest piece of writing he’d ever read.

Charlie asks Ellie to read the Moby Dick essay to him one last time. She initially refuses and goes to leave, but stops at the door in tears and proceeds to read it. As she reads, Charlie stands up and attempts to walk towards her, which he had failed to do when Ellie first visited.

As Ellie completes the reading, Charlie starts to ascend to the heavens as he looks up towards a white light in the sky.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly , Fraser gave his interpretation on the ending. “It’s important because it’s a Herculean effort that he makes to even get to his feet. For him to finally break through to her, humble himself before her, and let her know that he made a mistake and is sorry for it.

“While his life has not physically ended in that moment, I think that he knows he doesn’t need to live any longer, which is why he takes off his breather, he’s got her reading the essay, and he does take to his feet like three Olympic dead-lifters, takes his baby steps to his baby, and in that beautiful two-shot, a great white light appears, and they look skyward. Depending on your belief system, spiritually or otherwise, we see that Charlie – with a touch of magic realism – finally does fly.”

Related Topics
Brendan Fraser

'The Whale' Ending Explained: What Happens in Brendan Fraser’s Comeback?

No surprise from Aronofsky, but we have some questions!

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The Whale Darren Aronofsky ’s The Whale has already proven to be one of the most controversial films of the year, which isn’t all that surprising considering Aronofsky’s history of making divisive projects. While Brendan Fraser has received widespread acclaim for his powerful performance as the overweight professor Charlie, the film has been perceived as “fatphobic” by some critics. It will be interesting to see where The Whale ends up landing this awards season; some view it as emotionally devastating, while others consider it to be manipulative and overtly cruel.

What Is 'The Whale' About?

The Whale is based on a play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter , and Aronofsky’s adaptation does a good job of reflecting the intimacy of a stage performance. The film takes place entirely within Charlie’s apartment as his friend Liz ( Hong Chau ) comes to care for him. Charlie has managed to isolate himself from the world; he communicates with his students via Zoom but does not ever show his face. Charlie decides to reconnect with his daughter, Ellie ( Sadie Sink ), who has no interest in him. Charlie agrees to help write her English papers if she will spend time with him and write personal essays from her heart.

Towards the end of the film, Charlie’s world begins to crumble. After making a series of inflammatory messages to his students, he’s fired from his job. His ex-wife, Mary ( Samantha Morton ), confronts him about his relationship with Ellie and criticizes him for his failures in their marriage. After being alerted that he has congestive heart failure, Charlie goes on an eating binge and consumes pizza until he vomits. It’s an emotionally overwhelming experience, especially toward the very final moments of the story.

Why Does Mary Not Want Charlie to See Ellie?

As Charlie reveals early on, he is openly gay and was in a relationship with one of his former students, Alan. Following Alan’s death, Charlie began compulsively eating, prompting Alan’s sister Liz to come and take care of him. As part of their arrangement, Mary forbids Charlie from contacting Ellie; she reacts with rage when she realizes he’s asked her to visit him. While Charlie is apologetic for his failure as a father, he does not apologize for his sexuality. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, Charlie stands up to the missionary boy Thomas ( Ty Simpkins ), whose religion preaches homophobic messaging.

What Happened to Thomas?

As Mary reveals to Charlie, Ellie has been bullying people online through a private Facebook page. Mary feels that she has raised a cruel child and despite how Charlie has hurt the family, Ellie is the true “monster” in their family. In addition to posting pictures of her father, Ellie sends photos of Thomas (a former addict) to his church and family. Despite the seemingly cruel action, Thomas tells Charlie that he has newfound faith in people, as his parents have reached out to forgive him and welcome him home. Thomas also finds a picture of Charlie with Alan and realizes that he only put on the weight as a means of coping with his partner’s suicide.

RELATED: ‘The Whale’ Review: May the “Brenaissance” Continue Beyond Darren Aronofsky's Film

What Happened to Ellie?

Even though her father has been ghostwriting her essays so she can graduate, Ellie lashes out at Charlie when she realizes that he sent in an essay that she wrote when she was younger. Charlie feels that the essay is “honest” in a way that he appreciates, as he’s irritated by his students’ generic responses to his questions and prompts. He’s kept the essay for years and uses it to comfort himself. He tells Ellie how beautiful and talented she is, and for the first time, Ellie believes it. Even though Ellie spends the majority of the story mocking other people, she is in denial of her own talents and insecurities.

What Was Going on With the Pizza Delivery Boy?

Throughout the film, Charlie orders pizza online and has the delivery boy, Dan ( Sathya Sridharan ), leave it outside his door. While Dan tries to spark a conversation with him because he visits Charlie’s apartment so often, Charlie refuses to step outside and show his face. However, Dan decides to wait on the porch when Charlie comes to pick up the pizza and finally sees him for the first time. His immediate response is to look at Charlie in disgust.

What is Charlie Trying to Do at the End?

Charlie’s ultimate goal is to be completely honest with everyone around him. He refuses to apologize for his homosexuality to Thomas, and chastises him for thinking of him as “disgusting.” He realizes that even though Ellie appears to be cynical, she is really just seeking approval. He even shows his face to his students, and compliments some of the responses that they left in the last message board post that he felt were more honest than their previous work.

What Is Happening to Charlie in the Film’s Final Moments?

Charlie is dying at the very end and refuses to go to the hospital. As he bonds with Ellie, he attempts to stand. Between the effort of moving and his overall mental state, Charlie dies and ascends into an idealized version of heaven. It’s not the first time that Aronofsky has tackled religious imagery within his films. Both Noah and The Fountain directly deal with faith, spirituality, the afterlife, and the stories of the Bible-inspired mother! While Charlie meets his fate, he’s able to feel accomplished and unashamed.

What are the Differences Between the Play and the Film?

While both the original stage production and the film are very similar, Hunter made some changes to the script when translating it to a feature. Certain elements of the story, such as the Zoom calls and personal photographs, are detailed in a way that wasn’t possible on stage. While the play was released in 2012, the film takes place amidst the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, as news footage can be seen in the background. The endings are the same, but the film is slightly more hopeful, as Charlie feels that he has accomplished something greater.

The Whale Ending, Explained

The ending of Darren Aronofsky's most recent film, The Whale, left many people with more questions than answers. Let's break it down.

The Whale is a comeback film for Brendan Fraser, who delivers a highly-praised performance that won him his first Oscar for Best Actor.
The film polarized critics due to its portrayal of obesity, with some claiming it stigmatizes and mocks fat people.
The ending of The Whale is open to interpretation, with audiences debating whether the protagonist dies or experiences a symbolic moment of liberation.

The Whale hit the silver screen in 2022, marking the ultimate comeback of fan favorite Brendan Fraser following a few rocky years in his career and personal life. This Darren Aronofsky film, based on Samuel D. Hunter's 2012 play, was in the pipeline for years, as the director struggled to find the perfect actor to star in it. That remained the case until, eventually, he decided to cast Fraser based on his work in 2006's Journey to the End of the Night , a move that couldn't have worked out better: for his performance, the actor was lauded by critics and audiences alike, and took home his very first Oscar for Best Actor, among many, many other accolades. Joining Brendan in an equally brilliant cast are Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, and Samantha Morton.

With a worldwide gross of over $54 million against a $3 million budget, Aronofsky's film became an instant box-office hit and won several awards. However, reviews were quite polarized : while most critics praised Fraser's performance as the finest of his career and had kind words for the rest of the cast, others harshly slammed the film's portrayal of obesity, claiming that it stigmatizes and even mocks fat people. One thing is for sure: The Whale 's ending baffled many moviegoers. Let's break it down.

A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter. Directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Brendan Fraser.

What Is The Whale About?

Unlike other films comprising director Darren Aronofsky's filmography , The Whale has a fairly straightforward plot — though, of course, it's not without a certain complexity. It introduces Charlie (Fraser), a morbidly obese English teacher, who lives secluded from society in the privacy of his home, a place that is not quite suited to his needs. His sole connection to the world around him is his computer, from which he teaches college students while keeping his webcam off, as well as frequent visits from his friend Liz (Chau), a nurse who goes out of her way to help him. From the very beginning of the film, it is revealed that Charlie's congestive heart failure is worsening by leaps and bounds, and he has only a few days to live.

Despite Liz's insistence and this bleak prognosis, Charlie refuses to seek medical assistance since, according to him, he does not have the means to do so. Instead, he sets out to rebuild the bond with his daughter Ellie (Sink), whom he abandoned at the age of eight when he left his wife to chase an affair with his former student Alan. In an attempt to get his daughter to forgive him, he offers her a hefty sum of money that he saved over the years, along with doing all of her homework if she spends time with him and writes something honest for him — which she reluctantly accepts.

Related: The Whale Review: Brendan Fraser's Awe-inspiring Performance Keeps Darren Aronofsky's Film Afloat

The Whale essentially provides the audience with a first-hand look at what seem to be the last days in Charlie's life, his overwhelming desire to bond with a daughter who has no interest in him whatsoever, his conflicted relationship with religion explored through his connection with a Christian missionary who seems hell-bent on saving him, and the rampant but useless efforts of the few people around him to get the man to seek medical care once and for all.

What Happens at the End of The Whale?

On his deathbed, Charlie gets one last visit from his daughter, enraged that the essay he wrote for her made her flunk. As it happens, he actually replaced the piece with an essay on Moby-Dick written by Ellie when she was just a child, which is how the audience comes to discover why the real author of the essay of such significance to Charlie throughout the film. Realizing he is in his final hour , the man asks his daughter to read it aloud to him one last time in spite of knowing its words by heart, and as she does so, he manages to stand up and walk over to her with remarkable strength, something he had not been able to do the previous days.

Upon reaching Ellie, they both smile at each other, Charlie's feet are lifted off the ground, and he becomes surrounded by a bright white light. Just before The Whale 's credits roll, we get a brief but significant scene featuring a healthier Charlie dipping his feet in the ocean with his infant daughter, playing in the sand and his ex-wife watching them from afar.

Judging from everything we saw in The Whale , we can deduce that, in the end, Charlie dies, and that this cherished memory of a happier time might be his own idealized version of heaven. Before he dies, he gets the redemption he sought so hard in his final days: Ellie seems to have started to let go of the resentment she holds against him for walking out on her, and Charlie departs this world convinced that he may have turned her life around (though this could very well be his own interpretation of the matter).

But as obvious as this conclusion may seem, Aronofsky makes sure to leave the door open to audiences' interpretation, not only regarding Charlie's tragic outcome, but also the moments leading up to it. This, in a sense, invites us to second-guess the truth of what is unfolding at the end of The Whale . Does Charlie really manage to stand on his own two feet, walk to his daughter, and obtain her forgiveness? Or is this simply a deathbed hallucination before taking his last breath? There are as many possible interpretations of The Whale 's ending as there are people who saw it, yet it's safe to say that this film has certainly left a number of unanswered questions that will continue to spark some very interesting debates.

Related: The Whale Writer Reflects on the Brendan Fraser Film's Success

What The Cast Has to Say About It

The wonderful thing about films with open or ambiguous endings is that they allow everyone who watches them to come up with their own conclusions, even those who made the movie. Brendan Fraser, in particular, attributed a very different meaning to The Whale 's ending: for him, his character does not die in the final moments, but rather goes through a symbolic moment of liberation as he walks towards his daughter.

"It's important because it's a Herculean effort that he makes to even get to his feet", he told Entertainment Weekly . "For him to finally break through to her, humble himself before her, and let her know that he made a mistake and is sorry for it. While his life has not physically ended in that moment, I think that he knows he doesn't need to live any longer, which is why he takes off his breather, he's got her reading the essay, and he does take to his feet like three Olympic dead-lifters, takes his baby steps to his baby, and in that beautiful two-shot, a great white light appears, and they look skyward. Depending on your belief system, spiritually or otherwise, we see that Charlie — with a touch of magic realism — finally does fly".

Samuel D. Hunter, screenwriter and creator of the original play, also weighed in: "I think it's an apotheosis — you can take it how you want it. In the play, the way I wrote it is that you hear a sound of waves, and they slowly intensify through that scene, so, there's a way to read it both ways. It wants to be miraculous, either literally or figuratively, and I think you can watch it either way".

Stream The Whale on Paramount+

Stories for open-minded

The Whale movie explained: Charlie, the ending & meaning

The Whale is one of those movies that want to make you feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t try to stage a safe, comforting experience. It didn’t want to entertain the spectator. What the movie tries to do is present an authentic story of pain, exploring feelings, motives, and events that can turn a life upside down. Spectators were obviously puzzled: what is the meaning of the ending? Does Charlie die? And what’s the message the film wants to convey? In this article, everything about the core of The Whale will be explained.

You can watch the official trailer for The Whale here on Youtube .

The Whale explained: Charlie, the ending and the movie meaning

Two main characters constitute the blood and flesh of the movie: Charlie and his daughter Ellie. The stories of their lives explained the message of The Whale , culminating in the ending. Charlie is a professor, and he was married to Mary. When their daughter Ellie was eight years old, Charlie fell in love with Alan, one of his students. He decides to abandon his family and live with Alan. Mary will hate him for this and forbid him to get close to her and her daughter. Years later, Alan struggles to manage his life; his family refuses him for his choices. His guilt destroys him, leading him to commit suicide. Charlie will therefore find himself alone, reasoning about the mistakes he made in his life. He will begin a self-punishing descent into obesity that will ruin his life.

At the ending of The Whale , Charlie dies in front of his daughter Ellie, and the image of his feet levitating explained it with a beautiful metaphor. Charlie says it clearly for the whole movie: he doesn’t want to be saved. Listening to his story, we can try to understand how he feels: he had a wife and a daughter. He fell in love with Alan, and that destroyed his family’s lives. He cannot see his beloved daughter. Charlie did all this out of love for Alan, but after his boyfriend commits suicide, he has nothing left. The feeling is that he didn’t do a single good thing in his life: that’s why Charlie feels no purpose; there is no reason to improve his life. By eating junk food with no limits, he’s destroying himself, a self-punishment that he sees as unavoidable. He doesn’t even try to restore the relationship with his daughter because he knows nobody in this world would want him in their lives. Therefore, he will just die soon. And his money will go to his daughter, feeling it will be the only good thing he will do in life.

Ellie is a young woman who grew up with a mother with drinking problems and a father who abandoned her. She hates everyone; she’s drowning in anger and hate, and that’s just a normal consequence of a life without love. She doesn’t know the language of love: her parents acted like they didn’t love her, at least in her eyes. Her mother thinks she’s evil; her father believes she’s perfect. The truth is in the middle: “Evil” is not the trait of people born to hurt others, but the way we experience individuals who feel the urge to fight the world like their worst enemy. They attack everything they face because they are hurt. Defense is the only dynamic that drives them, and since they can be hurt by anything, every single presence in their lives becomes a threat. They are constantly at war: that’s why they destroy everything that crosses their way.

We can safely say that Ellie is not perfect, but we support Charlie in trying to understand her. Ellie’s behavior is a constant cry for help: she scratches everyone who gets closer because she desperately needs love. She is overwhelmed by her feelings, and she needs a guide. Basically, she needs the parents she never had. That’s why Charlie triggers her hate so much: he represents the reason why everything went south in her life. She always needed a loving father, and having it with so many years of delay is unbearable.

Identifying ourselves in Charlie, Ellie, and their stories, the meaning and the ending of The Whale are explained: Charlie knows he’s dying, and there is nothing he’s doing to prevent it. He feels terrible, and the only thing that can make him feel better is an old essay Ellie wrote when she was a child: while she reads it loud, Charlie finds the strength to do what Ellie asked him the first day, walking towards her. It’s the last effort his body is able to make: the second after, Charlie dies.

There is no lesson we can learn; even religion cannot help. We cannot explain Charlie, Ellie, or Alan’s destiny with the Bible. Every life can become hell, partly because of our own mistakes, but the consequences are often worse than what we deserve. Charlie didn’t deserve a life where everything would point at him as a total failure. Ellie didn’t deserve to grow up as a woman dominated by her own hate. With both of them, life has been more challenging than deserved, and there is nothing they can do. Ultimately, The Whale leaves us with a sense of impotence and a precise meaning: we watched a compact series of broken individuals, and we only learned that blaming someone makes no sense.

Discover other movies and TV shows explained on Auralcrave

Share this story:

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

About us | Privacy Policy | Contact us

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

"The Whale" is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances.

It gawks at the grotesquerie of its central figure beneath the guise of sentimentality, but it also offers sharp exchanges between its characters that ring with bracing honesty.

It's the kind of film you should probably see if only to have an informed, thoughtful discussion about it, but it's also one you probably won't want to watch.

This aligns it with Darren Aronofsky's movies in general, which can often be a challenging sit. The director is notorious for putting his actors (and his audiences) through the wringer, whether it's Jennifer Connolly's drug addict in " Requiem for a Dream ," Mickey Rourke's aging athlete in " The Wrestler ," Natalie Portman's obsessed ballerina in " Black Swan ," or Jennifer Lawrence's besieged wife in "mother!" (For the record, I'm a fan of Aronofsky's work in general.)

But the difference between those films and "The Whale" is their intent, whether it's the splendor of their artistry or the thrill of their provocation. There's a verve to those movies, an unpredictability, an undeniable daring, and a virtuoso style. They feature images you've likely never seen before or since, but they'll undoubtedly stay with you afterward.

"The Whale" may initially feel gentler, but its main point seems to be sticking the camera in front of Brendan Fraser , encased in a fat suit that makes him appear to weigh 600 pounds, and asking us to wallow in his deterioration. In theory, we are meant to pity him or at least find sympathy for his physical and psychological plight by the film's conclusion. But in reality, the overall vibe is one of morbid fascination for this mountain of a man. Here he is, knocking over an end table as he struggles to get up from the couch; there he is, cramming candy bars in his mouth as he Googles "congestive heart failure." We can tsk-tsk all we like between our mouthfuls of popcorn and Junior Mints while watching Fraser's Charlie gobble greasy fried chicken straight from the bucket or inhale a giant meatball sub with such alacrity that he nearly chokes to death. The message "The Whale" sends us home with seems to be: Thank God that's not us.

In working from Samuel D. Hunter's script, based on Hunter's stage play, Aronofsky doesn't appear to be as interested in understanding these impulses and indulgences as much as pointing and staring at them. His depiction of Charlie's isolation within his squalid Idaho apartment includes a scene of him masturbating to gay porn with such gusto that he almost has a heart attack, a moment made of equal parts shock value and shame. But then, in a jarring shift, the tone eventually turns maudlin with Charlie's increasing martyrdom.

Within the extremes of this approach, Fraser brings more warmth and humanity to the role than he's afforded on the page. We hear his voice first; Charlie is a college writing professor who teaches his students online from behind the safety of a black square. And it's such a welcoming and resonant sound, full of decency and humor. Fraser's been away for a while, but his contradictions have always made him an engaging screen presence—the contrast of his imposing physique and playful spirit. He does so much with his eyes here to give us a glimpse into Charlie's sweet but tortured soul, and the subtlety he's able to convey goes a long way toward making "The Whale" tolerable.

But he's also saddled with a screenplay that spells out every emotion in ways that are so clunky as to be groan-inducing. At Charlie's most desperate, panicky moments, he soothes himself by reading or reciting a student's beloved essay on Moby Dick , which—in part—gives the film its title and will take on increasing significance. He describes the elusive white whale of Herman Melville's novel as he stands up, shirtless, and lumbers across the living room, down the hall, and toward the bedroom with a walker. At this moment, you're meant to marvel at the elaborate makeup and prosthetic work on display; you're more likely to roll your eyes at the writing.

"He thinks his life will be better if he can just kill this whale, but in reality, it won't help him at all," he intones in a painfully obvious bit of symbolism. "This book made me think about my own life," he adds as if we couldn't figure that out for ourselves.

A few visitors interrupt the loneliness of his days, chiefly Hong Chau as his nurse and longtime friend, Liz. She's deeply caring but also no-nonsense, providing a crucial spark to these otherwise dour proceedings. Aronofsky's longtime cinematographer, the brilliant Matthew Libatique , has lit Charlie's apartment in such a relentlessly dark and dim fashion to signify his sorrow that it's oppressive. Once you realize the entirety of the film will take place within these cramped confines, it sends a shiver of dread. And the choice to tell this story in the boxy, 1.33 aspect ratio further heightens its sense of dour claustrophobia.

But then "Stranger Things" star Sadie Sink arrives as Charlie's rebellious, estranged daughter, Ellie; her mom was married to Charlie before he came out as a gay man. While their first meeting in many years is laden with exposition about the pain and awkwardness of their time apart, the two eventually settle into an interesting, prickly rapport. Sink brings immediacy and accessibility to the role of the sullen but bright teenager, and her presence, like Chau's, improves "The Whale" considerably. Her casting is also spot-on in her resemblance to Fraser, especially in her expressive eyes.

The arrival of yet another visitor—an earnest, insistent church missionary played by Ty Simpkins —feels like a total contrivance, however. Allowing him inside the apartment repeatedly makes zero sense, even within the context that Charlie believes he's dying and wants to make amends. He even says to this sweet young man: "I'm not interested in being saved." And yet, the exchanges between Sink and Simpkins provide some much-needed life and emotional truth. The subplot about their unlikely friendship feels like something from a totally different movie and a much more interesting one.

Instead, Aronofsky insists on veering between cruelty and melodrama, with Fraser stuck in the middle, a curiosity on display.

Now playing in theaters.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Clint Worthington

Matt Zoller Seitz

Under the Bridge

Cristina escobar.

Sheila O'Malley

We Grown Now

Peyton robinson.

Evil Does Not Exist

Glenn kenny, film credits.

The Whale (2022)

Rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content.

117 minutes

Brendan Fraser as Charlie

Sadie Sink as Ellie

Hong Chau as Liz

Ty Simpkins as Thomas

Samantha Morton as Mary

Sathya Sridharan as Dan

Darren Aronofsky

Writer (based on the play by)

Samuel D. Hunter

Cinematographer

Matthew Libatique
Andrew Weisblum
Rob Simonsen

Latest blog posts

I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It Before: Roger Corman (1926-2024)

RogerEbert.com Announces Assistant Editor, Weekly Critic, and Social Media Manager

The 10 Most Anticipated Films of Cannes 2024

The Importance of Connections in Ryusuke Hamaguchi Films

The Ending Of The Whale Explained

Darren Aronofsky , the director of "Black Swan" and "Requiem for a Dream," returns with "The Whale," a new film that sees actor Brendan Fraser make the comeback performance of a lifetime in an emotional story of compassion. The film, based on the 2012 play of the same name , follows Charlie (Fraser), a reclusive 600-pound man looking to reconnect with his distant daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), while dealing with a resurgence of past mistakes. As Charlie, Fraser shows a range of emotions not seen in his past performances and leads a focused tale full of triumph and heartache.

From the realization of his worsening health to the constant conflicts stemming from Charlie's past mistakes bleeding into the present, "The Whale" has a strong emotional pull that carries through to its tear-jerking ending. There's nothing as cathartic as watching "The Whale's" final act, which sees Charlie confronting himself and making better efforts to reconnect with Ellie. There are also unexpected revelations, burning themes, and closing arcs that all come so suddenly that the impact of some things could've slipped by. Looper is here to clear things up and dissect everything that happened during "The Whale's" finale

The truth behind Thomas' visits

When we first meet Thomas (Ty Simpkins), we learn that he's a missionary who goes door to door spreading the word of the cult-like religious group he's a part of that believes the world is ending. While Charlie can accept him since he does help him at the start of the film, his nurse and friend, Liz (Hong Chau), outwardly criticizes Thomas, as both she and Charlie have a bad past with his group. However, Ellie is much more inquisitive about Thomas and is eventually able to get him to open up about himself, which leads to quite a revelation.

It turns out that Thomas actually isn't a part of that group at all. He's just a runaway who left his home because of his frustration with the religious practices of his church and stole money from them to finance his trip. This reveal makes sense since he constantly said he was "new" to the group and didn't know the name of Liz's father, who leads the group. This also adds to Thomas' belief that he's ordained by God to help Charlie since he became frustrated by his old church's ability to spread its word and sees Charlie as an opportunity for self-fulfillment. It's an unexpected reveal that makes Thomas less of an innocent follower.

Ellie's picture collection

From her first appearance, it's tough to get a read on Ellie because of how closed off she is, and you can't help but question her real intentions. One thing that stands out as strange is how she takes pictures of Charlie and Thomas at different points in the film. Ellie takes pictures of Charlie struggling to use his walker and Thomas when he's smoking weed. Although it just seems like nothing at first, Ellie uses these photos for disturbing projects.

Ellie uses the photo she takes of Charlie to ridicule him on social media, making fun of his weight and telling him to burn in hell. As for Thomas, she sends the photos of him smoking to his family after hearing his story, and it ultimately results in him reconnecting with his family. Although Ellie's photography might seem harmless at first, it has big implications for those in the photos, and it doesn't always yield positive results.

The loss of Charlie's lover

After the death of his lover, Alan, Charlie develops an eating disorder that leads him to become incredibly overweight and suffer dangerous health issues. Although Charlie is generally unwilling to talk about Alan's death, Liz finds a moment to talk to Thomas about it. Alan's death also impacted her because he was her brother. According to Liz, her father, who leads the religious group that Thomas is supposedly a part of, was very hard on Alan after he came back from a mission and decided to not engage in the arranged marriage that he set up for him.

Instead, Alan decided to pursue a relationship with Charlie, leading to his father kicking him out of the group and the family. However, Alan still couldn't shake the impact of his upbringing and spiraled into a bout of depression that ended in him taking his own life. This would have a devastating effect on both Charlie and Liz and explains why they're so close. Liz is shown to be protective of Charlie from the start, and the story of Alan's death establishes why. That Charlie, too, could soon die is likely a gut-wrenching feeling for Liz.

If you need help with an eating disorder or know someone who is, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by callin g 1 -800-273-TALK (8255).

Charlie's massive money

To get Ellie to spend more time with him, Charlie makes an offer that he'll pay her for the time she spends with him. It's a hefty amount. His offer of around $120,000 is unsurprisingly too good for Ellie to pass up, and it remains a big motivator for her throughout the film — along with Charlie rewriting her essays to help her graduate from school. However, given his conversations with Liz about not being able to afford better living conditions or a hospital visit, it's tough to believe that he has that money.

In a conversation with Mary (Samantha Morton), it is revealed that Charlie does have that money, and it leads to some other realizations and conflicts. Liz is frustrated by Charlie since he could've used that money to help himself and get the medical assistance he needs. Liz's belief that Charlie was broke played a role in some of the sacrifices she's made for him, leaving her feeling like she's been taken advantage of. However, Charlie would've likely never given up any of the money anyway since he always planned for Ellie to have it all.

A tumultuous reunion

It's no secret that Charlie's marriage to his ex-wife, Mary, ended in shambles. He left her and Ellie to pursue a relationship with Alan, leading Mary to cut ties with him completely. However, when Mary arrives at Charlie's after learning that Ellie is there, we get a clearer glimpse into their fractured relationship and Mary as a character. In their time alone for the first time in a long time, we see these two more open and honest than ever before, and it's a strong example of their complicated relationship.

Although the two end up fighting over what happened between them, Mary is shown to be much more compassionate than previously suggested. She not only shows sorrow for Charlie for his current condition but even tells him a story about helping Alan before he died. This doesn't mend their relationship, and Mary still leaves in a fury over these resurfaced feelings, yet this scene shows the genuine care that remains in their relationship and how Charlie's decision to leave still causes ripples in their family.

A secret room

About halfway through "The Whale," Charlie tries to retrieve a key sitting atop a closed door – only for it to fall into a place he can't reach. Luckily, he gets Thomas to grab the key for him, and he opens a room that looks untouched and pristine compared to the rest of his house. At first, it's tough to figure out what this spare bedroom exactly is, but it eventually becomes pretty clear.

Even before Thomas grabs a Bible with Alan's name on it from the room, it's obvious that this room is Charlie and Alan's old bedroom. After Alan's death, Charlie was unable to enter the room again and has never let anyone inside. He probably only unlocked it recently because Alan has been brought up in conversation again. He now sees it as solace as he heads towards a tragic end. There are no flashbacks that give us a real look at Charlie and Alan's relationship, but seeing Charlie's face when he looks into the room shows the real love he has for him still.

Charlie's final hope

Throughout "The Whale," Charlie is shown to be incredibly desperate in wanting to reconnect with Ellie. He's not only willing to pay a bunch of money to get her to keep him company but even offers to rewrite her essays to help her graduate. Even when Ellie is immensely cold towards Charlie, he still yearns for her love, and that makes you wonder what Charlie exactly wants from reconnecting with her.

However, when talking with Mary, Charlie opens up about his desire to reconnect with his daughter, saying that he simply wants her to have the best life possible to create a sense of redemption within himself. He simply sees helping Ellie as the last thing he can do before dying to leave things on a better note and feel like he did something right. It's the wish that any parent would have for their child, and Charlie doesn't want Ellie to feel like she can't accomplish things because of how their family has fractured.

Charlie's sense of positivity

Even when the worst things are happening to him, Charlie generally has a positive outlook on life and those around him. When Thomas is chastised by Liz or Ellie does something that even her mother views as evil, Charlie always shows compassion to those around him. For Charlie, though, this positivity is both a gift and a curse. While it is nice that he tries to find the good in things, it can lead to him ignoring real problems in his life and not being able to confront things.

For instance, while it's nice that he makes an effort to remind Ellie that he thinks she's amazing, it doesn't heal the hurt she's suffered from their estrangement. This overt sense of positivity is also what leads to Charlie losing his faith and desiring to see only harsh truths that make "The Whale's" final act really tear at your heart. However, even when Charlie hits his lowest point, he is able to find the good in things again, leading to an emotional final sequence between him and Ellie. Charlie's journey throughout "The Whale" is about finding and understanding the truth about yourself without losing that sense of compassion that makes us care for one another as well as ourselves.

A final revelation

As shown in the opening shots, Charlie keeps his webcam off when talking to his class because he doesn't want them to see what he looks like. However, after sending them an assignment that asks them to simply be honest, Charlie makes the bold choice to turn his camera on for the first time. With the assignment (or more so the wording of it) getting Charlie fired from his position and his students' submissions inspiring him, he decides to show them who their professor really is.

In most other movies, this would be played like a truly inspirational moment. Yet, with Darren Aronofsky helming, it feels like a dark slice of reality, as some of Charlie's students can be seen reacting in shock around his square in the chatroom. It's a gut-wrenching affirmation of the truth that Charlie has been trying to hide from for quite some time, and the way it ends, with him throwing his laptop across the room, is legitimately painful. It's a moment you knew was coming, but still feels like a brutal punch to the gut.

The essay's author

When we're first introduced to Thomas, as he helps Charlie during a painful incident of heart failure, we also learn about an essay on "Moby Dick" that Charlie loves. For most of the film, we're left unsure who the author of this essay is. We just know that it acts as sort of a calming mantra for Charlie that reminds him of something he loves. In the final moments of "The Whale," we discover that Ellie is the author of the essay and that it's been a pivotal part of Charlie's connection to her.

Any time Charlie is in pain or on the verge of death, he either repeats part of the essay to himself or gets someone to read it to him. With the knowledge that Ellie is the author, hearing her essay acts as a reminder for Charlie of his final wish to make sure that she is in a good place before dies. It's a reveal that kicks off a deeply emotional final sequence between Charlie and Ellie that is undoubtedly one of the most emotionally charged moments in the film.

Charlie and Ellie's final reckoning

The final moments of "The Whale" are full of rich emotion – largely because of the final reckoning that Charlie and Ellie have before Charlie succumbs to his poor health. Although it seems like Ellie will rush out the door before she and her father can have one last moment together, she stops and fulfills Charlie's request to hear her read her essay. This moment also leads to Charlie getting up to walk towards Ellie, something she requests he does earlier in the film. It's a climactic, full-circle moment bursting with emotion.

There's something truly powerful about watching Charlie find the strength to get up and walk on his own in those final moments. However, this last act of strength doesn't mean that Charlie avoids death, as he's drawn up into a heavenly light. Darren Aronofsky ends the film on a fantastical vision of Charlie on the beach with Mary and Ellie. The choice to end the film on this flashback to a beloved memory likely signifies Charlie is at peace with how he left things and acts as a harmonious and fulfilling ending to his journey. Although Charlie and Ellie's relationship has been complicated, it's legitimately compelling to watch them come together in this final moment.

Is this the start of Brendan Fraser's comeback?

Although Brendan Fraser was once a notable mainstream star leading franchises like "The Mummy," it's no secret that his career has taken a downturn as he's dealt with personal issues and opened up more about being sexually assaulted . Recently, Fraser has started to work more in front of the camera again with his role as Cliff Steele/Robotman in "Doom Patrol" and appearances in films such as "No Sudden Move" and "Line of Descent." He was even set to appear in DC's now-canceled "Batgirl" movie as the villain Firefly. With all the acclaim he's receiving for his performance in "The Whale," does this role signal a true comeback for Fraser? Absolutely.

Fraser is set to be one of this year's top awards contenders and has already received a best actor nomination at the upcoming Golden Globes with many more likely to come. Ever since he got some big social media buzz for the lengthy standing ovation he received at "The Whale's" premiere at the Venice Film Festival, it seems that audiences have rallied around him. Fraser's performance in "The Whale" and the acclaim he continues to receive for it could easily lead up to a strong resurgence for the actor that fans would be thrilled to see. Who knows? Maybe "The Mummy" franchise could return with him.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

Entrepreneur, ESL Teacher, Traveler, and Writer

‘The Whale’ – Film Review and Analysis

“‘The Whale’, directed by director Darren Aronofsky shows us how low someone can go when things go wrong in life but also how our lowest lows can also bring out the best of us when it is most important.”

2022 may be over but I am still thinking about the most emotionally impactful movie of the past year, which deserves its own review and analysis. Likely to be nominated for a few Academy Awards at the least an Oscar for Best Actor nomination for Brendan Fraser, ‘The Whale’ is a powerful film about a man’s desire to try to right past wrongs in some way before it is too late. ‘The Whale’, directed by director Darren Aronofsky shows us how low someone can go when things go wrong in life but also how our lowest lows can also bring out the best of us when it is most important.

Aronofsky’s filmography from ‘Requiem for a Dream’ to ‘The Wrestler’ to ‘Black Swan’ to ‘The Foundation’ to now ‘The Whale’ all deal with flawed characters looking to right past wrongs or to find redemption in the most meaningful way(s) before they are past the point of no return. Aronofsky so brilliantly can capture psychological drama and tension in each sense in his movies that by the end, you’re so emotionally affected by it all that it can be hard to wrap your head around what you just watched. As a director, he is excellent at painting a picture of a person or people in distress and how while they may have had good intentions, they are almost too far gone to seek redemption or a new start.

Different from Aronofsky’s past films, ‘The Whale’ is adapted from a play of the same name dating back to 2012 so the screenplay that is written and the way the film is set up is exactly how a play would be seen on the big screen. There are few characters, the plot does not get too murky or complicated, and the setting remains the same largely throughout the whole film.

Film critics today may dismiss this film as lacking scale and scope in its ambition, but I was drawn to how beautifully it portrays what could be real people living real lives. ‘The Whale’ may be a film and fiction but it likely portrays real situations and real tragedies that some people unfortunately come to pass in their life. The film deals with multiple real world issues affecting people from obesity to alcoholism to lost loves to broken up families that most people in life can see how that can throw someone’s life off a cliff and make it almost impossible to recover.

‘The Whale’, as the title makes clear is about a severely obese man named Charlie who weighs around 600 pounds and suffers from multiple health issues because of his weight issue. He is estranged from his teenage daughter, separated from his alcoholic wife, and unable to turn the video screen as an online English professor because of his weight condition that may affect how his students see him. His only interaction is with his friend, Liz, who is also a nurse who comes to take care of Charlie especially with his multiple health issues causing him to be near death and at risk of heart failure.

Charlie has become a tragic figure in that he only has Liz left in his life after suffering the loss of the man who he fell in love with. Because of that love, he sacrificed his marriage with his previous wife and his relationship with his daughter for. After the affair he had with his student, Alan, who is also the brother of Liz, for whom she was adopted by a family and her father who was a pastor in the New Life Church. Liz was able to escape the church’s cultish tendencies but Alan’s possible guilt from being disowned by the Church and perhaps his family as well for his homosexuality and relationship with Charlie caused him to end his own life.

This terrible series of events punished Charlie and his eating condition after the death of Alan exacerbated his obesity and caused him major depression and an inability to form relationships with others beyond his caretaker and friend, Liz. Charlie is not looking for any pardoning of ‘sins’ from God or the Church that disowned Alan but rather the sole forgiveness of his daughter for whom he last saw when she was eight years old. Ellie is not a child anymore but is a rebellious and sullen teenager who misses her father and lashes out at her mother, who deals with her problems by downing a bottle of liquor, rather than raising her daughter to be better. Charlie is no saint in the matter in that he did commit adultery with Alan and led him to neglect his daughter, Ellie, and to push his wife away as well.

He never made amends for having caused them both grief and pain with his impulsive decision. His love for Alan eclipsed his love for his daughter, which he struggles in the film to get back. When the New Life Church’s doctrine and his family’s discontent with Alan’s sexuality, Alan’s suicide caused Charlie to spiral further to eat uncontrollably and to negate his relationships even more by becoming a total recluse who cannot even leave the house because of his body weight and inability to walk or drive a car.

‘The Whale’ also highlights how Charlie is not looking for pity from others or for forgiveness. He knows how much his life has gotten out of hand, but he is hoping to do ‘one thing in his life’ right before it’s too late for him. He believes that while his daughter acts out and despises what he has done, that there is still hope for her and that can she achieve her potential but to more importantly to ‘be a good person.’ It may be too late for Charlie to turn it around in life much to Liz’s, his wife’s, and even Ellie’s disappointment, but Charlie knows that redemption is possible for each of them and that even if he is not there, he will try to leave money for his daughter to have a future, or to tell his wife that he is regretful for him leaving them for his affair, and that he apologizes to Liz for what he has done to himself with the loss of her adopted brother that has strained their friendship in the aftermath.

Charlie does not want to be saved by God or religion or from himself but he wants to know that his life through the birth of his daughter is one thing that he got right in life and that while he wasn’t there for her before when she needed him, he can try to make amends before he leaves the world, and to encourage her to be better than he was, to be better off in life, and to be kind to others. He may have lost hope for himself, but he has never lost hope for his daughter.

Similar to how Charlie encourages his English students to be honest with their written essays, he tries to be honest with Ellie in why he did what he did, how he could have been a better husband to his wife, Mary, and how he let Liz down after the tragic death of Alan. Not everyone can be this honest, but Charlie has nothing left to lose, nothing much to gain, and with not a lot of life ahead of him except imminent death due to his body’s condition.

Despite all the concurring factors, Charlie is trying to regain his humanity and his family back as much as he can recoup after it had been lost even if he has become ‘The Whale’. While he may be misunderstood and loathed like the whale in the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville, he is not beyond redeeming himself in the eyes of others and providing some closure for himself in a life that had gone so far astray yet for which he had also been able to give something out of love back to the world to live on in the form of his daughter, Ellie.

Author: Ben W.

Hello, I am an Entrepreneur in Online Education focusing on English as a Second Language Studies. I offer online courses and eBooks on English grammar, Business English, and English writing. I also recently released my first personal development guide. You can find all of these offerings below and please sign-up for updates to come! Thanks. View all posts by Ben W.

The Whale writer didn't know about the ending change from the play

"I had no idea until I saw the rough cut."

In an interview with Digital Spy , the writer talked about the original ending and how the different ending was perfect for the film.

"The way the play ends is, Ellie has the last line of the essay: 'It made me feel glad for my…' And she's cut off by the stage direction – 'a sharp intake of breath'. 'Charlie looks up, and has a sharp intake of breath. End of play.' I actually didn't know about the beach scenes until I saw a rough cut. It was just kind of an incredible surprise," he said.

preview for The Whale | Official Trailer | (A24)

Related: The Whale ending explained

"I had no idea until I saw the rough cut, and I was so intensely moved by it. I was just like, 'Oh my God, that's perfect.' Because of the play, when there's that first flashback in the Mary scene, when you see him on the… Right? Is that the Mary scene?

"In the play, it's the one moment that I script as he’s giving that monologue about the Oregon coast that the sound of waves comes in. In the play, it’s heightened, and expands a little bit. I think Darren [Aronofsky, director] took that idea, and kind of ran with it, in this gorgeous way," he said.

The film’s star, Brendan Fraser, who scored a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal, recently opened up about how he wasn’t scared to take on the role.

Related: Brendan Fraser on not being scared of The Whale role

"I didn't feel scared. I felt – I don't know – energised. I felt enthusiastic. I felt like: 'That's going to be a good challenge. That's new. I haven't seen that before.' I felt really inspired," he explained.

"I also felt like it was something I wanted to do so bad, I could feel it in my bones. And the feeling of also having had that many times before in my life – in my career – and seeing that ship sail enough times," he added.

The Whale is out now in UK cinemas.

Best Entertainment and Tech Deals

Shop Sky deals across TV, broadband and mobile

Shop Google Pixel 7a phones

Coronation Street X Joanie - Gilroy Retro Newton And Ridley Sweatshirt

LEGO Disney and Pixar ‘Up’ House

LEGO 007 Aston Martin DB5 James Bond

Sign up for Apple TV+

Heartstopper Volume 5

Barbie The Movie doll

Sign up for Disney+

Ted Lasso x Nike: AFC Richmond home kit

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Jojo: Finally Home by Johannes Radebe

The Witcher wolf pendant

Barbenheimer - Barbie v Oppenheimer T-shirt

Barbenheimer T-shirt

Best PS5 deals - where to buy PS5 today?

Anker PowerCore Essential 20,000 PD Power Bank

Shivani Dubey is a freelance writer covering entertainment, culture, social trends and lifestyle. She has been published in Vice, Vogue India, Refinery29, Mashable, i-D, Little White Lies, HuffPost and The Daily Beast among other titles. You can find her on Twitter .

Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times , OK! , The Guardian and Grazia , is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies .

She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids . In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic , and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie .

.css-15yqwdi:before{top:0;width:100%;height:0.25rem;content:'';position:absolute;background-image:linear-gradient(to right,#51B3E0,#51B3E0 2.5rem,#E5ADAE 2.5rem,#E5ADAE 5rem,#E5E54F 5rem,#E5E54F 7.5rem,black 7.5rem,black);} Movies

phoebe waller bridge , 95th annual academy awards, oscars

B-movie director Roger Corman dies

Sebastian Stan and Lily James reunite for new film

anya taylor joy as furiosa, tom burke as praetorian jack and chris hemsworth as dementus, furiosa a mad max saga

Anya Taylor-Joy found Furiosa "very traumatising"

Daniel Craig's best Bond movie is now on ITVX

ryan reynolds and director john krasinski on the set of paramount pictures if

IF director addresses Pixar similarities

First reactions for Krasinski and Reynolds film IF

Peaky Blinders' Sam Claflin finds next lead role

New 28 Years Later movie lands release date

hannah waddingham and ryan gosling in the fall guy

The Fall Guy writer on Amber Heard joke backlash

zendaya sitting back with her hands on her head in challengers movie

How to get Zendaya's Challengers on DVD

manuel garciarulfo, the lincoln lawyer, season 2

Jurassic World 4 casts Netflix star in lead role

Writer Samuel D. Hunter digs deep to let loose his truth for ‘The Whale’

A man poses for a portrait in tan jeans and a navy shirt against a window looking over the Hollywood hills.

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

I didn’t set out to write a film. At first, I wasn’t even sure I was writing a play.

Maybe it was something I needed to write for myself, a quiet purgation that I’d keep in the cold, dark storage of my laptop’s hard drive forever.

Maybe keeping it to myself would allow me to put some personal stuff on the line that I’d previously been too scared or too embarrassed to access in my plays. The stuff that made me feel unworthy of being an erudite New York playwright. All that stuff I had pushed way down about growing up gay in Idaho, attending a fundamentalist Christian school, battling depression and subsequently self-medicating with food in my late teens and early 20s.

Maybe I should just write something honest.

This was 13 years ago. My then-boyfriend-now-husband and I were living in an illegal sublet in Hell’s Kitchen and teaching essay writing at a public university in New Jersey to dozens of disaffected college freshmen. I was teaching a kind of writing that felt anathema to my work as a playwright — I was asking students to depersonalize their writing, to stamp out any trace of emotion or personality in service of cold, hard objectivity. But it was better than a 9-to-5. At least it was adjacent to my seemingly unreachable goal of being a working playwright in New York City. (If there’s even such a thing anymore.)

FULL Actors Roundtable: Austin Butler, Adam Sandler, Jonathan Majors, Brendan Fraser & more

Getting it right vs. getting it truthful -- Austin Butler, Adam Sandler, more weigh in

Six Oscar contenders -- Austin Butler, Paul Dano, Brendan Fraser, Jonathan Majors, Bill Nighy and Adam Sandler -- talk about family, playing real people ... and mortality.

Dec. 15, 2022

Deep into the semester, I cracked. I couldn’t take another perfunctory analysis of whatever Malcolm Gladwell essay I had assigned them. My students were just giving me what they thought I wanted so they could take their B-minus and move on with their lives. So I pleaded with them, “Just write something honest. Don’t worry about making it a good essay. Just tell me what you truly think. Let’s start there.”

During a NJ Transit ride back home one night, I read one student’s heartbreaking truth, a line that ended up staying in the play and the screenplay throughout mountains of drafts: “I think I need to accept that my life isn’t going to be very exciting.”

That single line was a turning point in my artistic life. Because right after I read it, I had the thought: “Should I write a play about an expository writing teacher who is begging his students to write something honest? Is anyone going to want to watch that? More frightening than that, is this play a version of this exercise I had just given my students?”

I wrote the first draft in about six weeks, taking a break from grading freshmen essays every Sunday to generate 20 or so new pages of a nascent draft. Early on, I realized that not only was the character trying to connect with his students but he was also using those teaching sessions as a dry run to figure out how to connect with his estranged daughter. It felt entirely different than my previous plays. It was at once easier to write and more difficult, familiar but scarily vulnerable.

Several weeks and several drafts later, I made the decision to share it with my agent. Several months after that, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts produced a reading of it, and the following year, the center mounted a full production. Then — miracle of miracles — Playwrights Horizons, one of my favorite off-Broadway theaters, produced the play in its smaller, 125-seat theater. I had scaled the mountain.

Next came the truly unbelievable plot twist, a scene so grossly overwritten that it can be only real life — “Darren Aronofsky saw the play, and he wants to meet with you.”

It took another decade for the film adaptation to come to fruition. During those 10 years, I steadily worked on adapting the play to a screenplay, and the characters and story grew and sharpened in fundamental ways. The character of Thomas, originally a Mormon missionary (perhaps to slightly shield myself from my own past), now attends a fundamentalist church more similar to the one I was involved with as a teen. More important, my husband and I are now dads to a 5-year-old girl. So the story of a father and a daughter has become far less theoretical.

And during that decade when I was developing the screenplay, I wrote a little over a dozen plays, each of which shares the primary concern of “The Whale”: the tragedy of isolation and the redeeming value of human connection. In many ways, “The Whale” has been the clothesline upon which I’ve hung my entire body of work.

Thirteen years later, I’m glad I made the decision to take this story off my hard drive. Even though I have some distance from it now, at age 41, in certain ways it feels no less vulnerable and personal to me than when I first wrote it. But more than that, it’s been a constant reminder that I came into my own as a writer only truly when I finally took my own advice: Forget what other people want and just write something honest.

“Is it possible to write down how we feel without betraying our feelings?” Victoria Chang asks

March 20, 2024

A man and woman holding hands dash across a stage with stage props holding luggage

L.A. Affairs: I was 18. He was 36 and my teacher. Could our marriage survive?

March 15, 2024

Israeli women May, left, and Lilach, right, comfort each other as they visit the marker for Tifret Lapidot, their friend who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023 at the Nova music festival by Hamas militants during a cross-border attack, as they visit the site in Re'im, southern Israel near the Gaza border, Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. In late November, the sides agreed to one-week cease-fire. Hamas released over 100 of the 250 hostages it was holding, mostly women and children, while Israel freed 240 Palestinian prisoners. The sides blamed each other for the failure to extend the deal, and fighting has worsened since then. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

After a writer expressed sympathy for Israelis in an essay, all hell broke loose at a literary journal

March 12, 2024

From the Oscars to the Emmys.

Get the Envelope newsletter for exclusive awards season coverage, behind-the-scenes stories from the Envelope podcast and columnist Glenn Whipp’s must-read analysis.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES - CA - MAY 07, 2015 - Actor Louis Gossett Jr., who stars in the TV miniseries "Book of Negroes" photographed in the Los Angeles Times studio, May 07, 2015. (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times)

Louis Gossett Jr., ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ star who broke barriers in Hollywood, dies

March 29, 2024

Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sunday.

At Vanity Fair’s post-Oscars party, Barry Keoghan was all in on Sabrina Carpenter

March 11, 2024

illie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell back stage

Entertainment & Arts

Photos: An exclusive look at the Oscars’ best backstage moments

Emma Stone turns around on the Oscars stage to show the back of her broken gown

Emma Stone busted Oscars dress during ‘I’m Just Ken’ and had to be sewn in backstage

Share full article

Four sperm whales swim together just below the water’s surface.

Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs

Sperm whales rattle off pulses of clicks while swimming together, raising the possibility that they’re communicating in a complex language.

Credit... Amanda Cotton

Supported by

By Carl Zimmer

May 7, 2024

Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their lyrics. Are the animals producing complex messages akin to human language ? Or sharing simpler pieces of information, like dancing bees do? Or are they communicating something else we don’t yet understand?

In 2020, a team of marine biologists and computer scientists joined forces to analyze the click-clacking songs of sperm whales, the gray, block-shaped leviathans that swim in most of the world’s oceans. On Tuesday, the scientists reported that the whales use a much richer set of sounds than previously known, which they called a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.”

People have a pho-ne-tic alphabet too, which we use to produce a practically infinite supply of words. But Shane Gero, a marine biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa and an author of the study, said it’s unclear whether sperm whales similarly turn their phonetic sounds into a language.

“The fundamental similarities that we do find are really fascinating,” Dr. Gero said. “It’s totally changed the way we have to do work going forward.”

Since 2005, Dr. Gero and his colleagues have followed a clan of 400 sperm whales around Dominica, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean, eavesdropping on the whales with underwater microphones and tagging some of the animals with sensors.

Three sperm whales swim together just below the water’s surface.

Sperm whales don’t produce the eerie melodies sung by humpback whales, which became a sensation in the 1960s. Instead, they rattle off clicks that sound like a cross between Morse code and a creaking door. Sperm whales typically produce pulses of between three and 40 clicks, known as codas. They usually sing these codas while swimming together, raising the possibility that they’re communicating with one another.

Over the years, Dr. Gero and his colleagues have reviewed thousands of hours of recordings of the undersea noise. It turns out that sperm whale codas fall into distinct types.

One type, for example, called “1+1+3,” consists of two clicks separated by a pause, followed by three clicks in quick succession.

With backing from philanthropists, Dr. Gero and his colleagues started “Project CETI,” (for “Cetacean Translation Initiative”), to investigate whether artificial intelligence and other computing advances could decode whale songs. (The name is a play on SETI , the famous effort to search for extraterrestrial life; whales are also known as cetaceans.)

As part of the project, Pratyusha Sharma, a computer science graduate student at M.I.T., gave the data from Dominica a fresh look. But she was frustrated by the way biologists had visualized it.

On a computer screen, the codas appeared as a series of dots along a horizontal line, each dot representing a click. Ms. Sharma found it hard to compare codas, especially when two or more whales were singing over each other. So she instead plotted each coda’s clicks as dots on a vertical line, and then placed codas along a horizontal line based on when each began.

Using the new layout, Ms. Sharma saw something new. When a sperm whale repeated a coda, it sometimes stretched out the time between the clicks and then gradually tightened it up. Ms. Sharma and her colleagues called this phenomenon “rubato,” a musical term for speeding up a tempo and then slowing it down.

Dr. Gero was startled that Ms. Sharma could see something in sperm whale songs that he and his colleagues had missed for years. “It was a way we hadn’t looked at it,” he said.

Codas are so quick that the human ear can miss a rubato. But the researchers found the pattern in thousands of recorded codas.

The researchers believe that rubato plays an important role in whale communication. They found that after one whale used rubato, neighboring whales would rapidly match the tempo change with their own codas.

Ms. Sharma’s new visualizations also revealed that sperm whales could occasionally add an extra click to the end of the coda, a behavior they call ornamentation. The scientists found evidence that the extra clicks were not just pointless flourishes. The whales that led groups often used ornamentation, after which their followers often responded with codas of their own.

The analysis showed that the conventional catalog of sperm whale codas could not capture their full complexity. Sperm whales can produce a 1+1+3 coda, for example, that lasts four-fifths of a second, or one second, or 1.25 seconds. Other codas may last only one-third of a second or half a second.

All told, the researchers identified 156 different codas, each with distinct combinations of tempo, rhythm, rubato and ornamentation. Dr. Gero said that this variation is strikingly similar to the way humans combine movements in our lips and tongue to produce a set of phonetic sounds.

A single sound like “ba,” or “na” carries no semantic meaning on its own. But we can combine them into meaningful words like “banana.” The researchers raised the possibility that sperm whales might combine features of codas to convey meaning in a similar way.

Other experts said the whale alphabet marked an exciting advance. But they said sperm whale codas might be more akin to music than language.

“Music can have a strong influence on emotions without it actually conveying information,” said Taylor Hersh, a bioacoustician at Oregon State University. Rubato might be one way for sperm whales to tighten their social bonds, she speculated, by matching their songs.

Jacob Andreas, a computer scientist at M.I.T. and an author of the study, said that the alphabet is allowing the researchers to dig deeper into whale songs. “Now we have gotten the machinery in place to start tackling the much more ambitious, long-term goal for Project CETI, which is trying to figure out what all of this actually means.”

Microphones deployed in the Caribbean are capturing ocean sounds 24 hours a day, and scientists are programming computers to learn how to pick sperm whale songs out from the background noise.

Dr. Andreas and his colleagues are also training artificial intelligence programs similar to ChatGPT. After listening to the sperm whale songs, these models might learn to recognize not just rubato and ornamentation, but other features that scientists have missed.

The hope is that computers will then be able to compose whale songs of their own, which could then be played to the whales.

That effort leaves other experts skeptical. Luke Rendell, a marine biologist at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland, worries that the A.I. models assume whale songs are a kind of language, rather than something more like music.

“I’ve no doubt that you could produce a language model that could learn to produce sperm-whale-like sequences,” Dr. Rendell said. “But that’s all you get.”

Produced by Antonio de Luca and Hang Do Thi Duc

Audio by Project CETI .

Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column . More about Carl Zimmer

New Hampshire
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Online hoaxes
Coronavirus
Health Care
Immigration
Environment
Foreign Policy
Kamala Harris
Donald Trump
Mitch McConnell
Hakeem Jeffries
Ron DeSantis
Tucker Carlson
Sean Hannity
Rachel Maddow
PolitiFact Videos
2024 Elections
Mostly True
Mostly False
Pants on Fire
Biden Promise Tracker
Trump-O-Meter
Latest Promises
Our Process
Who pays for PolitiFact?
Advertise with Us
Suggest a Fact-check
Corrections and Updates
Newsletters

Stand up for the facts!

Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help.

I would like to contribute

Facebook Fact-checks
Threads posts

No, former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social didn’t ‘shut down’

If your time is short.

Truth Social didn’t shut down; the site is still active.

The accounting firm hired by Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, recently shut down.

A Threads post claimed more than a week ago that former President Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, had shut down.

"Breaking news, truth social is shut down, no longer operatable. God i hope so!!," the May 3 post said, misspelling "operable."

But a recent trip there proved otherwise.

This Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We found no credible news reports or other evidence showing Truth Social was ever shut down.

Featured Fact-check

On May 13, for example, Trump criticized talk show host Whoopi Goldberg, promoted some sneakers, and acknowledged Mother’s Day.

Some commenters on the Threads post speculated that this claim may have stemmed from the May 3 news that the Securities and Exchange Commission, charged auditing firm, BF Borgers and its owner, Benjamin Borgers with "massive fraud." Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, had previously hired the firm..

The commission wrote May 1 that Borgers directed his staff to copy work papers from previous jobs, change the dates and pass them off as work papers for new audits. BF Borgers will pay a $12 million civil penalty and Benjamin Borgers will pay a $2 million civil penalty to settle the charges.

The commission’s charges were not for any work BF Borgers performed for Trump Media, The Associated Press reported .

The firm and Borgers "also agreed to permanent suspensions, effective immediately, that will prevent them from handling SEC-related matters as accountants," the Associated Press said.

We rate claims that Truth Social was shut down False.

Read About Our Process

The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter

Our Sources

Facebook post , May 3, 2024

Truth Social , visited May 13, 2024

The Associated Press, Trump Media’s newly hired auditing firm was just busted by the SEC for ‘massive fraud,’ May 3, 2024

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by ciara o'rourke.

Support independent fact-checking. Become a member!

IMAGES

The Whale Essay, an art print by Nicole Klein
Inland Whale Essay
Inside the Whale
The Problem of the Whale Hunting
whale essay (3)
⇉Moby Dick or White Whale Essay Example

VIDEO

Lets talk about The Whale
Short Paragraph on Whale
The Whale Explained
The Whale Movie Malayalam Review
10 Lines on whale in urdu
Whale Essay in English 10 Lines || Short Essay on Whale

COMMENTS

The Whale
CHARLIE takes one last step toward ELLIE, his eyes on hers the entire time. The waves reach their loudest level. For the first time, ELLIE smiles at CHARLIE. ELLIE (CONT'D) "This book made me think about my own life, and then it made me feel glad for my--" CHARLIE looks up. The waves cut off. 108.
The Whale Ending & Real Meaning Explained
Throughout The Whale's story, Charlie is shown reading from a Moby Dick essay which calms him and brings him solace.The Whale ending explained that the essay was written by Ellie, and he considered it the most honest piece of writing he ever read.. Charlie was constantly frustrated with the students he taught online because they would give him generic responses or write what they thought would ...
'The Whale' ending explained by the play's writer, actors, directors
Both the play and the movie "The Whale" center on Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a reclusive, morbidly obese instructor of online writing classes who has been eating himself to death since the ...
The Whale ending explained as Brendan Fraser breaks down film
Charlie maintains that Ellie, like most people, has an innate capacity for empathy, and regularly heralds one of her blunt, years-old school essays criticizing the classic novel Moby Dick. He see ...
'The Whale' Ending Explained: Does Charlie Die?
Yes. While one could argue that The Whale ending is up for interpretation, my interpretation is that Charlie's feet leaving the ground is a clear metaphor for Charlie's body leaving this earth ...
The Whale Ending Explained: Step Into The Light
At the end of "The Whale," Charlie makes a triumphant march to his daughter as she reads to him from the essay that he loves so much. Despite being on his deathbed (or perhaps death couch is more ...
Brendan Fraser Shares His Interpretation of The Whale's Final Scene
In the final scene of The Whale, Ellie confronts Charlie about switching out her essay with an essay on Moby Dick she wrote in 8th grade. Charlie switched out the essays because he finally saw her and understood that the latter essay was an expression of herself. Though Ellie is defensive at first, the two end up attempting to connect one last ...
'The Whale' ending explained: what happened to Charlie?
What happens at the end of The Whale? 'The Whale' is out in UK cinemas from February 3. CREDIT: A24. As Charlie nears death in his home, Ellie confronts him after receiving a low grade for an ...
The Whale Ending Explained: What Happens in Brendan Fraser ...
Charlie is dying at the very end and refuses to go to the hospital. As he bonds with Ellie, he attempts to stand. Between the effort of moving and his overall mental state, Charlie dies and ...
The Whale Ending, Explained
The Whale is a comeback film for Brendan Fraser, who delivers a highly-praised performance that won him his first Oscar for Best Actor. The film polarized critics due to its portrayal of obesity ...
The Whale movie explained: Charlie, the ending & meaning
The Whale explained: Charlie, the ending and the movie meaning. Two main characters constitute the blood and flesh of the movie: Charlie and his daughter Ellie. The stories of their lives explained the message of The Whale, culminating in the ending. Charlie is a professor, and he was married to Mary. When their daughter Ellie was eight years ...
The Whale ending explained: What happened to Brendan Fraser's Charlie?
Brendan Fraser as Charlie in The Whale. YouTube/A24. Over the course of The Whale, we learn that Charlie ended his marriage to his wife Mary as he was hiding his homosexuality until he fell in ...
The Whale movie review & film summary (2022)
At Charlie's most desperate, panicky moments, he soothes himself by reading or reciting a student's beloved essay on Moby Dick, which—in part—gives the film its title and will take on increasing significance. He describes the elusive white whale of Herman Melville's novel as he stands up, shirtless, and lumbers across the living room, down ...
The Ending Of The Whale Explained
The film, based on the 2012 play of the same name, follows Charlie (Fraser), a reclusive 600-pound man looking to reconnect with his distant daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), while dealing with a ...
'The Whale'
'The Whale', as the title makes clear is about a severely obese man named Charlie who weighs around 600 pounds and suffers from multiple health issues because of his weight issue. ... Similar to how Charlie encourages his English students to be honest with their written essays, he tries to be honest with Ellie in why he did what he did, how ...
The Whale ending explained
The Whale has received heaps of critical acclaim, but is not without its detractors. Still, star Brendan Fraser has been nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award, alongside his co-star Hong Chau ...
'The Whale' Ending, Explained: Why Was Charlie Hopeful About ...
Thomas found it absurd when he asked him to read an essay that some student had written analyzing the novel by Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. We saw that as soon as Thomas started reading the lines of the analysis, which was undeniably quite bluntly written by an anonymous student, Charlie's pain started to wither away.
The Whale writer didn't know about the ending change from the play
"The way the play ends is, Ellie has the last line of the essay: 'It made me feel glad for my…' And she's cut off by the stage direction - 'a sharp intake of breath'. 'Charlie looks up, and ...
Writer Samuel D. Hunter digs deep to let loose his truth for 'The Whale'
Writing "The Whale," says Samuel D. Hunter, "felt entirely different than my previous plays. It was at once easier to write and more difficult, familiar but scarily vulnerable.". (Dania ...
George Orwell: Inside the Whale
It is a cry of unbearable disgust, a voice from the cesspool. Tropic of Cancer is almost exactly the opposite. The thing has become so unusual as to seem almost anomalous, but it is the book of a man who is happy. So is Black Spring, though slightly less so, because tinged in places with nostalgia.
Inside the Whale
"Inside the Whale" is an essay in three parts written by George Orwell in 1940. It is primarily a review of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller with Orwell discoursing more widely over English literature in the 1920s and 1930s. The biblical story of Jonah and the whale is used as a metaphor for accepting experience without seeking to change it, Jonah inside the whale being comfortably protected ...
Scientists Find an 'Alphabet' in Whale Songs
In 2020, a team of marine biologists and computer scientists joined forces to analyze the click-clacking songs of sperm whales, the gray, block-shaped leviathans that swim in most of the world's ...
No, former President Donald Trump's Truth Social didn't 'shut down'
The accounting firm hired by Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, recently shut down. A Threads post claimed more than a week ago that former President Donald Trump's social media platform ...
Understand South Korea, a success story with a dark side
Thomas Dunne Books; 480 pages; $28.99. Ebury Publishing; £19.99. South Korea's history is a dramatic one. It began with the Korean nation's birth 5,000 years ago; its founder was the issue of ...

The Whale ending explained: Brendan Fraser breaks down Charlie and Ellie's final scene

Related Articles

More From Decider

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal...

Brooke Shields Flashed Her ‘Mother of the Bride’ Co-Star Benjamin...

Andy Cohen Reveals Sarah Jessica Parker's Reaction When He Suggested Rosie...

Anne Hathaway's 'Tonight Show' Interview Hits An Awkward Snag After The...

11 Best New Movies on Netflix: May 2024's Freshest Films to Watch

John Green’s ‘Turtles All the Way Down’ Cameo Is a Treat for His...

Spider-Man Swings onto 'X-Men '97' — But This Isn't Just Any Spider-Man

‘The Whale’ Ending Explained: Brendan Fraser’s Uncomfortable Drama Ends With a Final, Cruel Tragedy

The Whale plot summary:

Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lawrence And More Slated As Oscars 2024 Presenters

The Whale ending explained:

Does Charlie die in The Whale ?

What was the end of Ellie’s essay in The Whale ?

'The View's Sunny Hostin Covers Her Face In Embarrassment As Whoopi Goldberg Asks If She'd Let Sherri Shepherd Date Her 21-Year-Old Son

Does 'Yellowstone' Return Tonight? 'Yellowstone's Season 5, Part 2 Premiere Date Info, Kevin Costner Updates, And More

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ on VOD, in Which Guy Ritchie Directs A Fictional Spin on a Real-Life WWII Era Secret Spy Mission

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Andy Cohen Reveals Sarah Jessica Parker's Reaction When He Suggested Rosie O'Donnell Take Over As Che Diaz In 'And Just Like That'

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal About Her Exes: "Wow"

The Whale Ending Explained: Step Into The Light

What you need to remember about the plot of The Whale

What happens at the end of The Whale?

Did Charlie die in the end?

Does Charlie go to heaven?

What has the cast and crew of The Whale said about the ending?

The play had a surprising alternate ending

Screen Rant

Zack Snyder’s DCEU Superman Trilogy Ending Would’ve Fixed His “God-Like” Movie Criticism

What Happens In The Whale's Ending

‘The Whale’ ending explained: what happened to Charlie?

What happens at the end of The Whale ?

Recommended

You May Also Like

'The Whale' Ending Explained: What Happens in Brendan Fraser’s Comeback?

What Is 'The Whale' About?

Why Does Mary Not Want Charlie to See Ellie?

What Happened to Thomas?

What Happened to Ellie?

What Was Going on With the Pizza Delivery Boy?

What is Charlie Trying to Do at the End?

What Is Happening to Charlie in the Film’s Final Moments?

What are the Differences Between the Play and the Film?

The Whale Ending, Explained

What Is The Whale About?

What Happens at the End of The Whale?

What The Cast Has to Say About It

The Whale movie explained: Charlie, the ending & meaning

The Whale explained: Charlie, the ending and the movie meaning

Share this story:

Movie Reviews

Christy Lemire

Now playing

Clint Worthington

Matt Zoller Seitz

Under the Bridge

Sheila O'Malley

We Grown Now

Evil Does Not Exist

The Whale (2022)

Writer (based on the play by)

Cinematographer

Latest blog posts

I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It Before: Roger Corman (1926-2024)

RogerEbert.com Announces Assistant Editor, Weekly Critic, and Social Media Manager

The 10 Most Anticipated Films of Cannes 2024

The Importance of Connections in Ryusuke Hamaguchi Films

The Ending Of The Whale Explained

The truth behind Thomas' visits

Ellie's picture collection

The loss of Charlie's lover

Charlie's massive money

A tumultuous reunion

A secret room

Charlie's final hope

Charlie's sense of positivity

A final revelation