‘Whalefall’: Exceptional Underwater Body Horror, Nearly Sunk by Its Own Baggage

IndieWire's review credits Brian Duffield with “exceptional underwater body horror” in a “sincere adaptation” of Daniel Kraus's novel, then adds the dagger: the film “packs enough emotional baggage to nearly sink its ingenious premise.” That is a compliment and a diagnosis in one sentence. Survival thrillers run on the ruthlessness of their premise; an adaptation also has to drag a novel's interior life into that container. Read the metaphor closely and the emotional material is treated as cargo — weight the premise has to float — rather than fuel for it. The hedge matters too. “Nearly sink” leaves the thing afloat, which is a different verdict from a pan, and a more interesting one: a film that works in its set pieces and wobbles when it stops to grieve. Whether you find that wobble moving or tiresome probably depends on how much catharsis you want with your claustrophobia.