Surprisingly, it does not.But is this whale a metaphor?Yes and no. I can’t stress enough that Jay is swallowed by a literal whale. While he’s in ther
Surprisingly, it does not.
But is this whale a metaphor?
Yes and no. I can’t stress enough that Jay is swallowed by a literal whale. While he’s in there, though, he’s also processing the death of his arduous father. As his oxygen dwindles, he starts hallucinating the voice of his father, played by Brolin, and gradually finds closure and the strength to survive his unusual ordeal. Eventually, Brolin starts speaking not only as Jay’s father, but also as the creature that has swallowed Jay. As a friend of mine put it, “The whale is actually your dad that sucks.”
Are you telling me this is really a movie about trauma?
It’s about grief, which is totally different. It’s also sorta-kinda about humans ruining the whales’ natural habitat. In an early flashback scene, Brolin says that there are too many boats in the bay, which are “making the whales go crazy.” Presumably, the whale that consumes Jay wouldn’t have been in the position to do that if not for the folly of man.
It’s a climate change movie, then.
Sort of. In both that and other ways, it’s better than Digger.
So how does Jay make it out in the end?
He explodes a hole through the whale, using a battery he has on hand, the last of the oxygen from his tank, and some steel wool he finds in the whale’s stomach.
Ocean garbage saves his life?
It does. So maybe Whalefall isn’t better on climate than Digger after all.
What is a “whalefall,” anyway?
As Brolin explains near the end of the movie, it’s the term for what happens when a whale dies and a whole recent oceanic ecosystem blooms in and around its corpse. And yes, whalefall is a real thing.
That’s actually a attractive and evocative concept.
You know what? It is. Congratulations: You’ve been whale-pilled.
