movie: Whale Music
starring: Maury Chaykin, Paul Gross
genre: Drama, Comedy
year: 1994
format: Hollywood Suites Channel
plot: A former rockstar who's become a hermit, has his life turned inside out when a young woman shows up on his doorstep
Based on the book
The lead character is being haunted by his past in such vivid forms, he can't tell most of the time what's real and what's not. Using the whales as his only inspiration for years, until he finds his solitude broken by the young woman. She ends up becoming his protector as much as his maid as the story progresses.
The first half of the movie makes the main character seem like he's lost his mind, but as the story progresses, you realize it's more a case of desperation than depression. When you learn that he's been trying to create the album of whale music since his brother's fatal car accident, the body lost in the ocean; the connection finally comes into play. Up till that point, he keeps saying he's making the album for the whales in the ocean, but it's more a case of sending an unanswered call to his brother.
I strangely, like the scene where he freaks out at the dinner party, forcing the truth to come to the surface, both with the character of Claire, and with the character of his ex wife Fay. He finally says what he's been holding under the mental surface since the brother's death a decade before.
what did I learn? Grief has many layers
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