The Whale (2022)

Brendan Fraser gives Charlie an attentive gaze and a hopeful smile that can feel generous one moment and evasive the next. That contradiction is more involving than the film's sometimes over-written movement towards catharsis. Hong Chau's blunt, exhausted care is essential to making the relationship credible; Fraser gives her someone specific to resist and protect. Expect severe bodily distress, grief and self-destructive eating, rather than a comforting redemption story.