Whalefall movie review: Stressful survival thriller puts Austin Abrams through the ringer

Poor Austin Abrams. The young American actor who stars in survival thriller Whalefall has really been going through it, at least on screen.

Abrams’ agents needs to book him an easier job, like a breezy rom-com, a project where he’s not been hit by a car and sprinting in the nude (Wolfs), being chased by a maniacal witch (Weapons), trying to survive a biological virus apocalypse (Resident Evil) and now being swallowed by a whale.

But considering his now four-movie run of being constantly put in jeopardy, it’s become weirdly a familiar sight. Doesn’t make it any less stressful though.

And Whalefall is Stressful with a capital S. Half the movie is Abrams squirming, at best, or screaming, at second best. You’ll be squirming too, but hopefully not screaming.

You really have to have the, excuse the pun, stomach for it.

But there are delights – probably the wrong word – to be had with a movie that is as contained and focused such as Whalefall. You know what you’ve signed up for. And some people like body horror, so who are we to judge their masochism?

Whalefall is based on the 2023 novel by Daniel Krauss, the screen rights for which were scooped up before publication. The solo survival thriller – think Cast Away, The Martian and 127 Hours – is basically a mini-genre at this point.

The story here is centred on Jay (Abrams), a young man who grew up with a heavy-handed dad, Mitt (Josh Brolin), who taught his son everything there is to know about scuba diving.

But his no-compromise approach opened gaping wounds in their relationship, and Mitt’s toxic approach to parenting pushed Jay away.

A year after Mitt’s death, Jay returns home to the central California coast, around Monterey Bay, to try and recover his father’s body from the ocean floor.

He doesn’t definitively tell anyone his plan, and armed with an hour’s worth of air in his tank, he dives in.

Unfortunately for Jay, an enormous sperm whale has also made that same patch of water its playground for the day. While the whale was trying to catch a giant squid for its meal, Jay gets tangled by the squid’s tentacles and ends up being swallowed by the whale.

So, the clock is running down on his air supply, he’s inside a freaking whale, and has to use everything he knows to try and escape.

Before you google it, Whalefall is not based on a true story. If any person, as in, a real one not Jonah or Pinocchio, has ever been swallowed by a whale and lived to tell the tale, they’re keeping it real quiet.

There have been some instances in which humans, a kayaker off the coast of Chile for example, have been sucked into a whale’s mouth cavity and is immediately spat back out, but none that have made it past the oesophagus. So, what the film imagines would actually happen is all conjecture.

As he’s trying to fight his way out, aided by the bioluminescence of a jellyfish, he reckons with the legacy of all that his father taught him.

The flashbacks to their relationship is a great showcase for Brolin and Abrams, but the emotional catharsis the film builds towards can sometimes feel a bit like excuses for abusive parenting.

These moments are going to work for some audiences, but others will find it too cloying, but the back-and-forth edits does at least provide some reprieve from watching one guy struggle inside a very small space.

On that score, given the hyper-focus of the action, Whalefall is probably 15 minutes too long, and after a while of watching whale insides, it can feel a little onerous and repetitive.

Abrams ably carries the movie but unless this is your very specific thing, Whalefall is more like a “nice to see” than “must see”.

Rating: 3/5

Whalefall is in cinemas