Whalefall

It's not that dire as that sounds, but it is not much better either. The story's arc, sadly, is not that convincing, neither Mitt's nor Jay's, with the women in their lives ignored to the point that it is criminal.

With stunning visuals, some brilliant performances, and amazing camera work, Whalefall is the genre-bending surprise of this fall that reminds you of what cinema can truly achieve. Austin Abrams is the star of the show, managing to reel the audience in with just his grunts and screams at times. But what truly separates the film from being just another survival thriller is how it blends the story of Jay and Mitt's relationship and estrangement with the central escape.

Whalefall is an unusual, often gripping film that makes a meal of an outrageous premise. It occasionally gets carried away with its own symbolism, but Abrams' performance and the visceral underwater sequences keep it afloat.

'Whalefall' turns an outrageous survival premise into a claustrophobic thriller, but its troubled father-son drama often gets in the way. The story struggles to balance physical danger with family baggage.

If only it had held its breath a little longer and resisted the urge to explain so much, Whalefall could have been a knockout. The emotional material becomes increasingly heavy-handed, with the film pushing its father-son themes so insistently that the metaphor begins to announce itself.

For all its spiritual ambitions, "Whalefall" rarely lets you forget that its protagonist is inside an animal — and that's mostly to the film's benefit. Even when the metaphor is painfully on the nose, the film's most disturbing images are more than their dramatic limitations and a whale is still an astonishing place to spend a movie.