Whalefall

Honestly, I had to do a Google search on Daniel Kraus to find out how he managed so many lines of print from the NYT to NPR for what is a mediocre, gastrointestinal thriller. Is he married to Anna Wintour? Does he have a pleasure island with comprehensive guest logs? Can he snag backstage passes to Taylor Swift?

This should have been a novella. Just cleave the out all the sad father/son dynamics. We're supposed to believe that Jay is shunned by the local community, his shoes spat on as he passes by for refusing to see his father as his cancer progressed? I'll allow for some emo teenaged angst but come on. Mitt may have been an accomplished local diver but he's was also a belligerent asshole that got kicked from job to job to the point he was fishing golf balls out of the local club's water traps. Meanwhile Jay has been living on the kindness of strangers for most of his teenaged years. Sounds like he was really reviled. Of course without the father son clash how would we get that whale telepathy that becomes essential later on?

Let's just focus on the gooey viscera inside the 60-ton sperm whale that has swallowed Jay. Let's just revel in the squishy, mucid, intestinal, gelatinous and fetid environment that he less than hour to escape from before his oxygen runs out. Jay does some hella whale McGyvering outta that stomach while enduring John Wick levels of abuse. That was fun.

But back to my confusion, the film rights have already been secured. Do they even read these things before snatching them up? I relish the thought of experiencing 90 minutes of barely illuminated dark amidst the persistent sounds of intestinal squelching. Like being trapped in a dryer on tumble filled with jello and a dozen silicone dildos.