Whalefall is a thriller about being swallowed by a whale – it shouldn’t be this boring

When the first trailer dropped for Whalefall, it turned heads with its survival-thriller concept: a man gets swallowed by a whale with only one hour of oxygen left in his tank. 

It’s a hell of an elevator pitch, and one that has a lot of pulpy potential, so it brings me no pleasure to say that Whalefall just doesn’t quite go deep enough into its concept to really deliver the thrills. 

Austin Abrams stars as Jay, a young man reckoning with the suicide of his terminally ill father (Josh Brolin), a local diver who was beloved by his community and Jay’s mum and sisters, but to whom Jay was estranged due to his dad’s emotionally abusive and tough demeanour towards him. 

One year after his dad’s death, Jay decides to go out into the depths to try and discover his father’s remains. However, while searching the ocean, he becomes ensnared by a squid that is fast becoming a sperm whale’s dinner. Finding himself inside the belly of the whale, Jay is now in a race against time to find his way out. 

Whalefall does spend some time layering in a tragic backstory for Jay, with the survival thriller being played out against the backdrop of a young man trying to reconcile with a sense of guilt over not being around when his father died.

We get flashbacks that offer a window into their strained relationship, with the more sensitive Jay often having to contend with a stern and puritanical dad who puts him down for not being more like him. 

It’s a well-performed dynamic between Abrams and Brolin, but there is nothing particularly deep or very convincing about the very trite father-son drama that is the catalyst for the journey Jay goes on.

It’s not very convincing why he’s getting into the water in the first place, and then the film proceeds to punish Jay mercilessly for how he left things with his dad, and rarely seems that bothered about examining the damage that his dad inflicted upon him in a meaningful way (in fact, it lets him off way too lightly). 

When the film dives deeper into overt sentimentality in the final third, taking a bizarre pivot into whale spirituality, it becomes a bit ridiculous in a way that’s not particularly entertaining. It takes itself far too seriously and delivers a confused message that struggles to provide an impactful catharsis for both Jay and us as the audience. 

Where director Brian Duffield is more successful is in the actual thriller elements of this survival tale. It manages to construct some good tension out of what is ultimately quite a restrictive environment: that being the belly of a whale.

Through a good blend of practical elements and CGI in the surroundings, and great attention to detail in the sound mix, Jay’s trials are suitably slimy and gross and tense, if a little difficult to make out at times, when planning his next move out of his Cetacean prison. 

It also contains some very grisly moments, meaning this, paired with last month’s Resident Evil, makes 2026 the unofficial year of movies in which Austin Abrams has A Very Bad Day.

Much like in Zach Cregger’s video game adaptation, Abrams proves his chops as an empathetic lead in an unbelievable situation, grounding the visceral spectacle in human emotion even if the script is over-wrought (his buddying up with an unlikely jellyfish sidekick is particularly charming).

Those hoping for some shlocky fun with Whalefall will sadly be left wanting. There are some good moments of claustrophobic terror, but the hackneyed emotional arc both robs the film of a knowing sense of humour and doesn’t provide enough convincing material to feel justified. A sinking disappointment.

Whalefall is released in cinemas from October 16, 2026

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