Title – Whalefall (2026)
Director – Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You)
Cast – Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Shue, John Ortiz
Plot – In the aftermath of his estranged father Mitt’s (Brolin) passing, college student Jay Gardiner (Abrams) finds himself in a battle for survival when a whale swallows him while on a deep-sea dive back in his hometown.
“Hold your breath”
Review by Eddie on 19/10/2026
When it comes to feature length movies about a human being swallowed by a large creature, there’s little doubt that Brian Duffield’s adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s well-liked novel Whalefall is in the top tier of its fellow castmates.
Being in this top tier doesn’t automatically mean that Whalefall is in fact a great movie in all instances, its compatriots are few and far between in feature length form, but when it comes to wild swings from Hollywood blockbusters in 2026, Duffield should be commended for turning his big-budgeted survival thriller into something that is often a lot of fun to watch, even if it’s the type of film you’d only be likely to watch once.
Garnering some decent attention when it unleashed its wild teaser trailer a few months ago, Whalefall is indeed a movie centred almost entirely within the belly of a sperm whale that Austin Abrams softly spoken college student Jay finds himself in when he returns home in the wake of his father’s passing a year prior.
That Duffield and Abrams are able to hold out attention across the films close to two hours running time is no small feat, and while there are some stretches of Jay’s journey that lose steam, multiple flashbacks to Jay and his father Mitt’s toxic relationship (with a grizzled Brolin chewing the scenery) do start to wear thin after the first batch of insights are over with, Whalefall does have some genuinely thrilling and inventive segments that are a sight to behold on the big screen and prove that Abrams is unquestionably a star on the rise.
Seen within the last 12 months battling various entities and scenarios in Weapons, recent box office hit Resident Evil and now whales, squid and daddy issues here, Abrams has really been through it on screen in 2025/26 but he continues to prove that he’s a star to watch, doing a great job here often acting alongside nothing but a helpful jellyfish and a giant tooth.
Having the weight of the film on his shoulders once Whalefall’s money shot moment of Jay being swallowed by the whale takes place, Abrams couldn’t have done anymore than he does here, able to make us feel Jay’s pain, sadness and longing in an impressive way, making sure that even when Whalefall runs out of steam in some of its segments, there’s never a moment where we aren’t invested in Jay’s plight to somehow make it home from his wild predicament.
Unable to find much of an audience in its early days playing out in cinemas across the world, it’s likely that Whalefall finds itself a broader audience once it hits streaming services in the not too distant future, making for a fun and original take on a tried-and-true formula that also includes more ruminations on father and son relationships than you’d expect from a movie marketed around a person stuck in the belly of a whale.
Final Say –
Filled with some thrilling moments and some more uninteresting and repetitive scenarios, Whalefall doesn’t always swim but never sinks thanks to Austin Abrams impressive performance and Brian Duffield’s solid directional choices.
3 tour boats out of 5
