Whalefall Traps Jay Gardiner Inside a Sperm Whale for 1 Hour 46 Minutes
Updated
Updated · Variety · Oct 14
Whalefall Traps Jay Gardiner Inside a Sperm Whale for 1 Hour 46 Minutes
3 articles · Updated · Variety · Oct 14
Summary
Jay Gardiner is swallowed by a sperm whale off Monterey after a giant squid tangles him during a dive to find his dead father’s body.
Inside the whale’s glowing, multi-chambered digestive tract, Jay spends most of the 1-hour-46-minute film trying to avoid being pulled into the acid-filled stomach.
Brian Duffield’s adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s 2023 bestselling novel leans on flashbacks to Jay’s abusive father, played by Josh Brolin, as survival lessons become the escape mechanism.
The review says that setup yields little suspense, calling the PG-13 thriller visually passable but claustrophobic, gross and unintentionally funny rather than scary.