When I was a boy, I used to wear this thick yellow jacket all seasons round. My friends would make fun of me as I joined in playing football during recess like any other kid, but blanketed in sweat. On a particularly hot day that I’d refused to remove my thick yellow jacket, my year 5 teacher became concerned. She held me in during lunch. “Lev, are you hiding something?” All these years later, and I realise she was worried I might be hiding bruises, maybe that I was a victim of abuse. But I wasn’t, my parents were amazing, I just hated the body I lived in and hoped if I hid it away from people well enough they’d never have to hate me for it as well. But eventually it’s what I became known for, the kid who wouldn’t take off the thick yellow jacket.
Those close to me know that memory isn’t one of my strong suits, but I’ll never forget with crystal clarity the times in my life I felt so ashamed of my body that I wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t go to the beach and enjoy the ocean, would make up excuses to cancel plans with friends or hide in bathrooms for hours on end during pool parties to avoid the most terrifying question that haunted my Australian childhood. “You getting in the water?”
“Nah” “Why not” “Oh, I just, have an allergy to some sunscreens and I left mine at home.” “Just go in with your shirt on.” Fuck. I’d think to myself, people don’t always offer that, it’s some kind of protection but the moment I step out of the pool they’ll see the shape of my body right under that shirt. Okay, I’ll get in, but I’ll make a plan of how and when to get out. The closest towel is on the chair by the steps, next time someone makes a good joke, or bombs the pool, I’ll get out and hurry to the towel. The bathrooms only a few strides away. Perfect. I executed my plan, made it to the bathroom without drawing many eyes and inside the bathroom I found a friend. He was the other ‘fat’ kid in my friendship group, he was hiding there too. That was the first time in my life I felt like I wasn’t alone in this shame. I remember we didn’t say much to each other, but that we hugged and promised one another it would get better one day.
The very best movies take something deeply specific and explore its lived experience until it transcends into the universal. The Whale, in the eyes of a kid who grew up in shame, is about that shame and what it will exclude you from in life if you let it consume you. It sounds bizarre, almost reductive to Charlie or people who suffer obesity to say I couldn’t help but feel I understood some small part of what Charlie, the main character, was going through. It’s only a sliver of what the film was trying to say, but it was the part that resonated with me.
I wanted to write a review about the film because its craft is considered and intentional, the performances are honest and devastating, the cinematography is invisible in the best kind of way and the score is at times relentless, at times cruel and at times heartbreaking. But in trying to write an analysis of a movie, all I could think of was a kid who wore a thick yellow jumper all those summers because he lived his life in shame. Me and that friend I found in the bathroom at the pool party? We still catch up. We’re not afraid of the ocean anymore.
Go watch The Whale, it’s really very good.