A friend lucked into a screening of Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale, which just premiered in Venice. Reaction #1: “It pains me to say this, but it just doesn’t work.” Reaction #2: “It’s just too stagey,” which is to say, I gathered, too visually confined, too static. But how can an adaptation of a play about a 600-pound guy who never leaves his apartment be opened up?

Let’s be fair and free — let the air and sunlight in — let’s see what develops.

September 4, 2022by Jeffrey Wells24 Comments