A warning this episode contains discussion of suicide.

In the new DARREN ARRANOSKI film The Whale, Brendan Frazier plays Charlie, a house-bound

600-pound gay writing teacher whose health is failing.

His hopes to spend his last days reconnecting with his estranged daughter are complicated

by her lingering resentment of him and his own feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.

I'm Glenn Weldon and today we're talking about The Whale, a pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Joining me today is comedian and co-star of the movie Bros and the upcoming Apple Plus series

Platonic Guy Branemwook, under the show guy.

Good to be back, Glenn. Good to be here with you. Always a pleasure.

Always a pleasure to have you, especially now. The Whale is based on a 2012 play by Samuel D. Hunter

who adapted it for the screen himself. As portrayed by Brendan Frazier and his fat suit,

Charlie is a sad, passive man who's forever apologizing for his mere existence. He apologizes

to his friend and caretaker Liz, played by Hong Chao. He apologizes to his surly,

possibly sociopathic daughter Ellie, played by Sadie Sink, and to his ex-wife Mary,

played by Samantha Morton. Between bouts of binge eating, Charlie teaches a remote

college writing course without turning on his camera. He's also visited several times by a young

missionary played by Ty Simkins. The Whale grapples with a lot of subjects, fatness,

queerness, religion, parenthood, self-hatred grief, depression. It's in select theaters now,

and expanding to other cities over the next few weeks. Let me just say this at the top. It turns out

just so happens neither one of us like this film. That happens sometimes. We do bring in a

range of voices, but sometimes all the voices on a given panel come down negative. We do hear

from you sometimes when that happens. So I'm just going to say, if you're looking for one of us

...