{"id":889864,"date":"2026-10-21T09:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889864\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:30:13","slug":"whalefall-ending-director-brian-duffield-on-why-he-resisted-at-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889864\/","title":{"rendered":"Whalefall Ending: Director Brian Duffield on Why He Resisted At First"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains major spoilers for Whalefall<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the most rewarding cinematic experiences leave questions unanswered. It\u2019s better that we don\u2019t know what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation or what\u2019s inside the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Whatever conclusion you draw in your own mind will likely be more satisfying than anything Sofia Coppola or Quentin Tarantino could spell out. Whalefall writer-director Brian Duffield<\/a> and his collaborators are now taking the same approach to the ending of their well-received survival tale.<\/p>\n

\n\tCo-written with Whalefall author Daniel Kraus, Duffield\u2019s adaptation reframes Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams<\/a>) as an Iowa college student returning home to the Central Coast a year after his estranged, terminally ill father, Mitt (Josh Brolin<\/a>), died by suicide at sea. When Jay catches up with his older sisters, Eva and Nan (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd), it\u2019s established that he still hasn\u2019t opened the letter his father left behind for him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe last time father and son Gardiner saw each other was aboard Mitt\u2019s whale-watching vessel, where Mitt\u2019s drinking and subsequent erratic behavior led Jay to openly reject the waterman way of life his father had instilled in him since birth. Jay then jumped off the boat and swam home, despite Mitt\u2019s warning that his \u201csoft lungs\u201d wouldn\u2019t get him back to shore.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrompted by Nan\u2019s lament about their father\u2019s empty casket and his own desire for posthumous reconciliation, Jay sets out to find his dad\u2019s underwater remains near the edge of the canyon at Monastery Beach. However, his half-baked plan quickly goes awry when a squid ensnares him while fighting for its own survival in the mouth of a sperm whale. Jay later wakes up in the multichambered stomach of the 80-foot-long, 60-ton leviathan with only an hour\u2019s worth of oxygen left in his tank.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut thanks to the survival skills his dad drilled into him starting at 4:30 every morning, Jay eventually MacGyvers his way out of the whale by setting off an explosion. The makeshift bomb kills the already dying whale, setting in motion the titular ecological phenomenon of a whalefall. When a whale dies and sinks to the ocean floor, its carcass provides sustenance for deep-sea organisms for centuries, triggering a shockwave of life. In this instance, Jay is the first beneficiary, narrowly surviving the blast before being rescued by a nearby cabin cruiser.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhalefall once ended with the latter rescue scene, at least until test screenings convinced 20th Century to champion an epilogue offering a sense of family closure. While away at college in Iowa, Jay remained in contact with his mom and sisters, unlike his father, but he was still emotionally disconnected from them. Even after returning home, he struggles to reminisce with them about Mitt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new final scene reunites a now-happy Gardiner family and their family friend Hewey (John Ortiz) out at sea. It also gives viewers a chance to take in the full extent of Jay\u2019s injuries, including the severe scarring on his neck and the loss of his left arm, which he sacrificed to spark the explosion.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat scene at the end was something the studio really pushed for, and Austin and I were both a little like, I don\u2019t know. Isn\u2019t it cool to just end with him getting fished out, seeing that he\u2019s survived, and then be done with it? I love older movies that just end like that,\u201d Duffield tells The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditional photography took place earlier this year after Abrams finished another one-man torture exercise, Resident Evil, with Duffield\u2019s friend and Siren Head collaborator, Zach Cregger. Upon seeing Abrams\u2019 performance as a reborn Jay, Duffield quickly realized the familial coda was absolutely the right call. It also gave him the opportunity to tie up the loose end of Mitt\u2019s letter. Although it wasn\u2019t a story point in Kraus\u2019 novel, the author knew what the note should say, and Duffield agreed. He then informed Abrams, who played the unseen reveal with a tearful laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor now, Team Whalefall is keeping the contents of the letter under wraps. Duffield did shoot a close-up revealing Mitt\u2019s parting message, but 20th later noted that it was better left ambiguous. \u201cThe studio was just like, \u2018No, it\u2019s better without it.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Great! That suits me fine,\u2019\u201d Duffield recalls.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuffield does hint, though, that the words are already embedded in the film. \u201cIt\u2019s something that is textually within the movie. We play fair with that. It\u2019s not a big long letter explaining, I was actually the whale. It\u2019s a very short letter,\u201d he says. \u201cMitt\u2019s not going to write a long letter to someone that doesn\u2019t want to speak with him, but it says enough that Austin was really excited once he heard what Daniel and I think it said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven Jay\u2019s laugh, did the letter borrow the final words of Kraus\u2019 novel \u2014 \u201cSleeper, arise!\u201d \u2014 recontextualizing the wake-up command that Mitt barked at Jay every morning at 4:30? (The phrase also echoes a similar line in the Book of Jonah.) Perhaps Mitt wrote something more sardonic: \u201cYou\u2019ve still got soft lungs. I love you.\u201d Or maybe he was so sincere that Jay couldn\u2019t help but laugh at this rare display of earnestness from his gruff father. Thus, could Mitt have written the same poignant line that Jay hallucinated Mitt-Whale saying at the tail end of his stay inside the whale\u2019s stomach: \u201cYou are my remains\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tIn any case, Abrams explains why he will never publicly disclose the contents of the note, citing the earlier point about letting the audience fill in the blank. \u201cIf you put your own interpretation on it, that\u2019s potentially going to be more meaningful and interesting than whatever was written,\u201d Abrams recently told THR<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019re also projecting whatever you wish a family member had said to you if they\u2019d written you a letter before they died. So there\u2019s value in the not knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBrolin, on the other hand, opted not to ask Duffield and Kraus about the matter, preferring to imagine his own version of Mitt\u2019s parting words to his son. \u201cI created what Mitt wrote in my head, and I never wrote it down,\u201d Brolin shared with THR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a spoiler conversation with THR, Duffield also discusses how Mitt\u2019s unaddressed backstory informed his treatment of Jay, before shedding a little light on the third act\u2019s surreal connection between Jay and Mitt.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tI mentioned in our pre-release piece<\/a> how satisfying Mitt\u2019s title drop is. Did the book serve that up? Or did you and co-writer Daniel Kraus engineer that?<\/p>\n

\n\tGod, that\u2019s such a good question. Daniel Kraus and I were just talking yesterday about how we now have really fuzzy memories of what\u2019s in the book versus what\u2019s in the movie. It\u2019s an unusual title, and people often think it\u2019s because Jay is falling into the whale. But once you learn what it means, it\u2019s such a beautiful idea that you\u2019ll never forget. Daniel ties it to our humanity and how losing loved ones can ripple through time.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe also talked a lot about how, when these very intense things happen to Jay in the present, it\u2019s hard to move to the next event in a linear way. It\u2019s hard to go straight from Jay getting swallowed by the whale to Jay waking up inside it. The audience needs a second without the whale before they\u2019re ready to reengage, and that\u2019s how we used a lot of Josh\u2019s flashback scenes as Mitt.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen everything happens toward the end of the movie, audiences once again needed a second, and we were always like, This feels like a really great last time to see Josh. It\u2019s the one purely lovely scene between Jay and Mitt, and I like the idea that it bookends their contentious first boat scene together.<\/p>\n

\n\tOur memory also doesn\u2019t work linearly. The best memories can sometimes come to the forefront, but Jay\u2019s first memories of his dad are really tragic ones. So I like the idea that, by the end, he gets to a place where he can really enjoy these other memories of him.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJosh Brolin<\/a> and Director Brian Duffield<\/a> on the set of Whalefall<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJennifer Clasen\/2026 20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tMitt reminds me of a lot of these famous sports dads \u2014 Earl Woods, Richard Williams, Marv Marinovich \u2014 who raised their kids from birth to be this or that. Mitt tries to do something similar with Jay, but Jay just isn\u2019t meant to go that way. He\u2019s a sensitive kid, and a question is eventually raised about his sexuality. So is the root of the issue that Mitt didn\u2019t accept Jay for who he is and kept thinking he could force him to be Mitt Jr?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s some of that in there. The Mitt character was always really excited to have a strapping, seafaring son. Josh also had conversations with me and Daniel about something that\u2019s not really in the book, but Mitt probably had a really tumultuous upbringing and life before settling down. He looks like someone who\u2019s been through it. He\u2019s got some nasty scars on his body that we don\u2019t explain.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I love about Mitt \u2014 and what I think Josh plays so beautifully \u2014 is that Mitt doesn\u2019t lie. He really is someone who\u2019s genuinely concerned about Jay. So when he finds out he\u2019s dying of cancer, his first instinct is, If what I went through happens to Jay, he\u2019s not ready. He\u2019s going to get chewed up, and I\u2019m going to have failed him as a dad because I haven\u2019t left him with the ability to take care of himself. So there\u2019s a part of Mitt that deeply, deeply loves his son, but he really wants to be tough on him so that he doesn\u2019t have the same life experiences he\u2019s had.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou hear that in the movie, too. During the boat fight, Mitt straight-up says, \u201cI failed you,\u201d which I think Jay interprets as, \u201cYou suck, and my failing is that you\u2019re not good enough.\u201d But for Mitt, it\u2019s, You\u2019re not ready. I failed you. These are my mistakes.<\/p>\n

\n\tEverything about the boat fight is terrible for Jay, but Mitt\u2019s trying to be honest with him. And even in the moment with the knife, Mitt is very excited. He\u2019s not trying to be scary. He\u2019s like, We can do it together. I\u2019m trying to figure out how to bond with you, and I don\u2019t have the articulation necessary. I\u2019m also just trying to get you to be tough so that when I\u2019m gone, you\u2019ll be okay. And weirdly, Mitt achieves that in the end.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe heartbreaking thing for me is that almost every scene between them in the movie is a version of Mitt wanting to spend time with Jay. It\u2019s something that repeats throughout the movie, and they\u2019re just not on the same page. Mitt just can\u2019t figure out how to get out of his own way, and after a lifetime of this, he has just beaten Jay down.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s nothing Mitt\u2019s more excited about than diving with Jay, but it\u2019s not like playing soccer. It\u2019s a life-or-death activity. If Jay messes up, he dies. So there should be a level of intensity that comes with that. Mitt is essentially telling him, If you don\u2019t listen, you\u2019re going to die. Jay would much rather have been playing soccer, but the ocean is Mitt\u2019s favorite thing in the world, so he\u2019s so excited to share it with his son.<\/p>\n

\n\tHad Mitt not died when Jay was around 30, they\u2019d probably find each other and have a good, healthy relationship later in life. But death doesn\u2019t care about your character development. It comes when it wants, and it happens to come at a really terrible time for their relationship.<\/p>\n

\n\tMitt wanted to become one with the whales, and he gets his wish in a couple of ways, particularly when Jay speaks to him through the whale. Is Jay hallucinating because of the toxic air and dwindling oxygen?<\/p>\n

\n\tEveryone has their own interpretations, but there are definitely textual reasons in the movie for why that would happen. As Jay makes peace with things, you start getting flashbacks that he could never remember. The scene with Mitt and Jay as a baby is something that I think happened, but Jay obviously wouldn\u2019t be able to recall a memory from when he was an infant.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a movie that beats up a character more than we beat up Jay, physically, without killing him. So he\u2019s definitely partially brain-damaged at that point in the movie, which is hopefully pretty clear. But ultimately, the movie allows for whatever interpretation you would like.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the epilogue, when we see Jay on the boat, he\u2019s heavily scarred and half his arm is gone. He\u2019s not deaf, but his hearing is probably shot.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019ll come back.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat kind of life do you imagine for him going forward?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo one can say he had a good time in the whale. He leaves it with a severely broken leg, a missing arm, collapsed lungs, blown-out ears, some brain damage and cracked ribs. He spent a long time in the hospital. But emotionally, he\u2019s in a very different and healed place, which was always something I just enjoyed so much in Daniel\u2019s novel. So when you see him on the boat at the end, he\u2019s reconnected with his family, and there is a weight that is gone from him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat scene at the end was something the studio really pushed for, and Austin and I were both a little like, I don\u2019t know. Isn\u2019t it cool to just end with him getting fished out, seeing that he\u2019s survived, and then be done with it? I love older movies that just end like that. But I did love the idea of having Elisabeth [Shue], Jane [Levy] and John [Ortiz] back.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis happened all the time while we were shooting the movie, but Austin was so good in that scene that I was just like, Oh, of course this scene has to be in the movie. This is how we see that he has healed into a different man. He may be scarred and missing parts of his body, but there\u2019s a real peace you feel with him at the end. It\u2019s a type of peace you never see that throughout the rest of the movie, even before he is inside the whale. So he has some stories to tell, but the journey did what it needed to do for this guy. It was a really great therapy session.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas that boat scene a pickup after the fact?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it was a pickup we shot right after Austin finished Resident Evil. Just by happenstance, he had a much different haircut, which was great because it showed that time had passed. We also really didn\u2019t want to do wigs.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt came out of a lot of test screenings. People just wanted to see Elisabeth and the family again. You can tell Jay isn\u2019t quite connected with his family at the start of the movie, so it\u2019s nice to see him embrace his family and be a little bit more connected. He\u2019s forgiven himself for feeling like he\u2019s let them down, and they\u2019ve welcomed him back. Jane\u2019s oldest sister character then helps him open the letter because he only has one hand. So the scene turned out really lovely. [Writer\u2019s Note: Emily Rudd\u2019s middle sibling character has her back to the camera the entire scene, as the actor was likely unavailable for additional photography due to One Piece season three commitments.]<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you, Kraus or Brolin actually write Mitt\u2019s letter to Jay?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it\u2019s something that Daniel always knew. So I know what it says, and Austin does too. There was one shot where the wind blew the paper just enough that you could kind of make it out, but we blurred it out a little bit.<\/p>\n

\n\tInitially, I didn\u2019t tell Austin what it said because we were kind of going back and forth on it. Then I was like, \u201cWell, this is what Daniel and I think it said.\u201d And Austin was like, \u201cPerfect. I know how to play it.\u201d That instantly unlocked it for him, and you see that with the laugh and the tears.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s something that is textually within the movie. We play fair with that. It\u2019s not a big long letter explaining, I was actually the whale. It\u2019s a very short letter. Mitt\u2019s not going to write a long letter to someone that doesn\u2019t want to speak with him, but it says enough that Austin was really excited once he heard what Daniel and I think it said. We also shot [a close-up of] it, but the studio was just like, \u201cNo, it\u2019s better without it.\u201d And I was like, \u201cGreat! That suits me fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t***
Whalefall is now playing in movie theaters. Check out the rest of THR\u2019s coverage including Brian Duffield<\/a>, Austin Abrams<\/a> and Josh Brolin<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains major spoilers for Whalefall.] Some of the most rewarding cinematic experiences leave questions unanswered. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[267495,300832,12773,79,40681,201],"class_list":["post-889864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-austin-abrams","tag-brian-duffield","tag-josh-brolin","tag-science","tag-whalefall","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}