Brendan Fraser

 

I was taken by Brendan Fraser's acceptance speech last night for the best actor Oscar and was reminded of many interesting parallels between his latest film and the first I recall seeing him in.

His performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale is utterly fascinating, aside from Fraser's amazing prosthetic transformation into a morbidly obese gay recluse eaten up with self-loathing, grieving his dead lover and trying to reconnect with the daughter he abandoned years before.

The picture is a study in both self-defeatism and, perhaps, depending on how you read the ending, the spirit triumphing over the flesh.

In 1998, Fraser co-starred with Ian McKellen in Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters, the film based of the last days in the life of James Whale (amazing coincidence but that's not the only one), who directed Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

Set in the '50s, Whale, who was gay, develops an attraction to his gardener (Fraser) who soon becomes his helper-companion though Whale promises he has no agenda beyond platonic friendship. Whale talks the young man into posing for him on a number of occasions, despite having lost much of his artistic ability in a stroke.

During one session, after being caught in a rainstorm following a party, the old, infirmed and besotted Whale makes a pass at the gardener, who responds violently. Whale begs the young man to beat him senseless but the gardener doesn't. Rather, he helps Whale to his bed, clearly pitying him more than hating him.

In the morning, the gardener and the maid, who is played by Lynn Redgrave, find Whale's body floating in the pool -- a suicide.

I was reminded of this film while watching The Whale, noting how 25 years later, Fraser, 54, was himself playing a gay character, alone and lonely, trying desperately to make a connection. And he turned it into gold.

That's quite a journey.