I watched the movie The Whale today with my wife. We both thought it was a brilliant movie, but it wasn’t exactly easy to watch. Some of it reminded me of my own struggles with recovery from Alcohol Use Disorder. One thing about it was pretty cool though.
The movie has a lot of references to Moby Dick. Having read Moby Dick a few years back just for fun, I remembered back to the main characters, especially the highest ranking crewmembers on the Pequod.
- Captain Ahab is a man possessed. To say he is obsessed with hunting down the white whale would be a massive understatement. He believes his life is a failure unless he can exact revenge on Moby Dick. He believes he is the only one who can control his redemption, and that revenge is the only way he can do it.
- Starbuck, the first mate, is a man possessed by religion. He is sober and faithful. He believes that the righteous will prevail, but only if they adhere to a strict set of principles and behaviors. He doesn’t see it as control so much as appeasement of an angry God.
- Stubb, the second mate, is easygoing and full of good humor. He has accepted that the whaling profession is fatally hazardous, that his fate is pre-determined, and that there is essentially nothing he can do to alter it. He has relinquished any illusion of control, and has found happiness in acceptance.
- Flask, the third mate, is focused on the task at hand, the one thing he can truly control or influence. He is a pro at killing whales, and finds fulfillment in dispatching them without mercy or ceremony. He simply does the job for the sake of doing a good, efficient job.
As for me, I strive to be like Stubb, especially now with recovery still very much on my mind. But I also have to recognize that I have strong elements of Flask in me…I love my work and I take a lot of pride in doing a good job. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I have bits of Starbuck and even Ahab in me too.
The Whale is a tearjerker. But it’s not the kind of tearjerker you might expect. No one is absolutely a hero or a villain. You can see many different perspectives on the same set of events, and there isn’t a clear right or wrong one. That’s what makes it so true to life. It has the potential to start lots of good conversations about humanity, and it’s just a good movie that way.
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