‘Whalefall’ Review: Austin Abrams Gets Swallowed by a Whale in an Unintentionally Preposterous Thriller — a Tale of Human Perseverance and Mammalian Stomach Lining
Is it gross? At moments. Claustrophobic? A bit. Scary? Not even a little. The place Jay finds himself looks like a colonoscopy designed by H.R. Giger. The visual effects are…okay. At times, it’s as if we were locked in some pop-up theme-park ride called Full Cavity Search.
Paradise Lost, directed by Yeon Sang-ho, delves into themes of artificial intelligence (AI), human nature, memory, loss, grief, and motherly love. The film follows So-young (Kim Hyun-joo) and her son Sun-woo (Bae Hyun-sung), who was presumed dead after a bus carrying a group of children to a winter camp vanished. So-young interacts with Sun-woo through an augmented reality program called Children of Paradise, which reconstructs their children using AI.
Nine years later, the real Sun-woo returns, causing turmoil and chaos as he questions his mother to let go of the AI version of him. Despite the film's exploration of these thought-provoking themes, the author argues that combining them all in one narrative results in a spread-out plot, making it difficult for the audience to connect with the characters and fully grasp the story.
Veteran actor Kim's performance as So-young adds a grounded element to the film, but the abrupt transitions and insufficient explanations regarding Sun-woo's nine-year absence hinder the viewer's ability to fully engage with the story.
Written by urgent.news from Yonhap News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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