Whalefall: critics split on survival thriller about a son trapped inside a sperm whale
Austin Abrams plays Jay, a young diver swallowed by a sperm whale while searching for his late father, played by Josh Brolin. Reviewers largely agree on the grief theme and the claustrophobic action, but they disagree on whether the 106-minute film holds together.
The premise
Whalefall adapts Daniel Kraus's 2023 novel about Jay, a young scuba diver who goes searching for the remains of his father, Mitt, a well-known diver played by Josh Brolin. Mitt died at sea off the California coast a year before the story begins, and his body was never found despite extensive searches. On the first anniversary of his death, Jay sets out without telling anyone, and a giant squid pulls him into the mouth of a sperm whale. Inside the animal he has dwindling oxygen and about an hour to find a way out.
Critics on the thriller
The Guardian calls the film overlong and flashback-heavy, saying it keeps viewers on edge only in moments. Its reviewer argues that the 106-minute runtime stretches the setup too far, leaving little reason to root for Jay's escape. The New York Times takes a warmer view, describing the premise as a squishy-bellied twist on survival movies and reading the whale as a metaphor for the weight of grief. De Volkskrant calls the film a roller coaster through a pulsing gullet and toxic stomach acids, and it praises the underwater photography for its almost cosmic beauty.
The Dutch critic is less kind to the family material. The father-son flashbacks are described as clichéd, and a voice-over that lets the father speak to Jay is called a contrived device. RTE, which ran the headline 'survival thriller meets male weepie', says the film is technically accomplished and that Austin Abrams carries the picture as an action lead.
Family drama and the father
The flashbacks paint Mitt as a stern parent who dismisses a friend's birthday party at Ocean World as 'fake ocean' and urges his son to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon to loosen up. He calls Jay's lungs 'soft', a line the Guardian quotes as a sign of how difficult the relationship is. The New York Times notes that every survival tip Mitt gave his son ends up applying once Jay is trapped. When Jay talks aloud to the whale and his father at once, the creature answers in Brolin's voice and refers to itself as 'we', a device the New York Times treats as a metaphor for grief.
Brolin and Abrams on the shoot
Josh Brolin says he read the novel while filming Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars and slowed down because he did not want it to end. He told the Irish Times that the story moved him to speak with his own son and his father, the actor James Brolin, about their relationships.
I had a massive emotional reaction to the end of that book.
According to RTE, the crew considers Whalefall the hardest job of the lot. SAPO reports that Abrams had little diving experience before the shoot and performed many stunts on wires pulled by crew members, and he described the production as a new kind of challenge for everyone involved. Brian Duffield, who directed and co-wrote the adaptation with Kraus, told RTE that the film is 'the opposite of Jaws', although it still gives fans of Spielberg's 1975 film plenty to hold on to.
Reception and release
The cast also includes Elisabeth Shue, Jane Levy, Emily Rudd and John Ortiz, according to RTE. SAPO, which published its interview on 14 October 2026, reports that the film opens in Portuguese cinemas in mid-October. The same outlet notes that Duffield's earlier films Spontaneous and No One Will Save You have no distribution in Portugal. Reviewers consistently point to the underwater survival sequences as the film's strongest element, while disagreeing sharply on the emotional scenes that frame them.
