A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I’m a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky, I was really eager to check it out. Well, it turned out to be another fascinating emotional rollercoaster coming from this director, that’s for sure. Obviously, this movie will be mostly remembered for Brendan Fraser’s performance and, even though I always thought that Fraser was one of the most underwhelming actors ever, I have to admit that he was actually quite amazing here. Of course, you might argue that they could have cast an actually obese man for this part but it would have never worked since the character was in such a life-threatening situation through the whole duration. As a result, an actor in a fat suit was the only option. The fact that the character himself and his background was so fascinating also tremendously helped. Sure, Aronofsky with ‘The Wrestler’ already delivered a movie about a man on a self-destructive path who tries to reconnect with his daughter but these similarities didn't bother me. This movie also reminded me of ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ with Nicolas Cage delivering another Academy Award winning performance for portraying an alcoholic drinking himself to death. Eventually, the only thing that didn’t really work was the fact that, for a man completely isolating himself from the world, there were just too many people orbiting around him. On top of that, the characters themselves didn’t really work, at least, not all of them. Seriously, did we really need Thomas? It was above all his convoluted backstory that bothered me. It was the same issue with Liz. Sure, Hong Chau gave a really solid performance and it was a good idea to have a nurse taking care of Charlie. However, it was just too much that she also took her of his lover who tried to starve himself to death and that the guy turned out to be also her brother. I think it would have worked better if she would have been simply his nurse without all this extra far-fetched baggage. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a strong drama with an unforgettable performance from Brendan Fraser who finally managed to redeem himself to me after years of delivering some garbage.