On February 24th you’ll be able to witness the fatsuit for yourself, as that’s the date that Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” will be released on VOD.
It’s one of the very last, if not the last, of the Oscar contenders to be made available for public consumption. A24 hid the movie for as long as they could, releasing a trailer that was barely a trailer — all of this in fear of any sort of backlash occurring against the film’s depiction of obese people.
Know what? The A24 campaign worked. There weren’t too many “fat-phobic” writeups and Brendan Fraser got his Best Actor nomination. He might even win the damn thing, unless Austin Butler or Colin Farrell have something to say about it.
The film did get snubbed when it came to Best Picture, but that probably had more to do with the mixed reviews it garnered than anything else. It’ll have to settle with a very impressive PGA nod.
Aronofsky is a peculiar filmmaker. Sometimes he aims so high, and so boldly, that he just completely misses the mark, such as in films like “Noah,” “mother!” “The Fountain.” Other times, he gives us these incredible, more intimate movies, like “The Wrestler,” “Black Swan” and “Requiem For Dream.” As much as I didn’t like “The Whale,” I look forward to his next film.
Critics might have been disappointed by “The Whale,” however audiences seem to have really been taken by the film. It currently has an impressive 8.0 on IMDB and a 91% audience score on RT.
Now the question is whether Spidey can become the first movie to cross $1 billion domestically. With its legs having slowed down, and $63M in receipts still needed, I highly doubt it.