Plight of whales told as political, moral tale

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UNIVERSAL John Krasinki and Drew Barrymore make nice with a trapped whale. (POSTMEDIA)

Back in 1988, when the world was a simpler place -- although a no less selfish one -- a distant story captured the public imagination. Three California grey whales were trapped under the ice in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point of the United States. If they weren't freed in a few days, they would suffocate.

Then, as now, the public imagination was a beast as elusive as a California grey, and just as likely to get trapped. As explained in Big Miracle, a story "inspired" by the tale of the whales, Tom Brokaw's NBC newscast had a minute and 40 seconds to kill one night after its big story on the Bush-Dukakis debates -- it was an election year in the U.S. -- and they had a choice of a train crash in India that killed scores of people, or three imperilled whales. "Whales," a TV producer says. "Brokaw's a sucker for those kind of stories."

Thus are the world's hearts captured, although I'm still not sure why. Big Miracle is a family film in which the whales -- nicknamed Fred, Wilma and Bamm-Bamm, after Flintstones characters -- play a kind of icebound supporting role. We don't see much of them, and, frankly, they're not much to look at: big lumpy things whose grace is hinted at in a few underwater scenes.

Most of the action takes place on the surface, where a competing cast of human protagonists -- environmentalists, oil-industry bigwigs, TV journalists, politicians, military officers, natives, and the crew of a Russian icebreaker -- is drawn into the drama because it's something they can cash in on. In the words of J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson), head of an oil company who sees good public relations in helping the cause, "Make sure you get lots of good pictures of me and those big fish."

By the end, it's the welfare of the whales that unites them, and if a local native kid can sell sheets of insulating cardboard for $20 each to the gathering reporters, where's the harm?

The whales are discovered by Adam (a laid-back John Krasinski), an Alaska TV reporter looking for big stories in Barrow -- before the whales, the best one was about a Mexican restaurant with good guacamole -- so he can move on to a larger station somewhere warmer. He's joined by a go-getting L.A. newscaster (Kristen Bell), who also sees the whale story as a ticket to more airtime, aligning her with Adam in that age-old journalistic game of using tragedy to find fame.

Adam's ex-girlfriend Rachel (Drew Barrymore) hears about the impending disaster and also rushes up to help. Rachel works with Greenpeace, and her strident espousal of all things non-human is at once touching and profoundly irrational: Big Miracle is surprisingly clear-eyed about the mixed motives of its characters, even when they're (pardon the expression) fishy.

Director Ken Kwapis (He's Just Not That Into You, License to Wed) dances around the film's several love stories in favour of its politics. For a kids' movie, Big Miracle has a lot of big ideas, and, occasionally, like the people on screen, it seems to forget about the whales entirely, although not while Rachel is around: Her paean to the connection between whale and human ("we get scared, we're vulnerable, we need help") is a Hallmark moment that plays like parody.

Adapting Thomas Rose's book, Freeing the Whales, screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler make some pretty astute political points: Big Miracle is less Free Willy and more like a minor-league version of Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder's excoriating 1951 film about how the media exploit a trapped miner.

That one ended with the miner dying. Big Miracle is happier, except for Dukakis voters.

-- Postmedia News

Other voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Big Miracle.

Like a whale itself, Big Miracle is large and unwieldy -- but it also has its moments of splendour.

-- Christy Lemire, Associated Press

Fictional treatment of the 1988 effort to rescue three whales trapped under Alaskan ice features a wide-ranging cast of characters and offers solid family entertainment.

-- Kevin Lally, Film Journal International

Miracle eschews black and white -- even the Inupiat have ulterior motives -- for shades of grey.

-- Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix

While rooting for the marine mammals (and wishing for more footage of them-and even of their animatronic incarnations), your heart will also go out to the cast, stuck even more pitiably in syrupy manufactured crises.

-- Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

Formulaic and predictable in the way most Hollywood versions of inspirational true tales are, Big Miracle benefits from the likable personalities of its characters and the actors who play them, Krasinksi and Barrymore.

-- Emmanuel levy, Emmanuellevy.com

Political cynicism, media opportunism, dogmatic native traditions, corporate greed and environmentalist stubbornness are each, in turn, dashed against this sunny confection.

-- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

With such a large and likable cast, the whales are a relatively small part of the movie. But the wonder of Big Miracle is that their fate can make a cold-hearted audience blubber.

-- Joe Williams, St. Louis Post Dispatch

Big Miracle tells its sort-of-true version of events in a democratic and humane fashion, by way of a rangy, lively group of competing interests who actually do on occasion act like real people.

-- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

The movie balances its sentimental side with a healthy dose of cynicism.

-- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

Things go wrong then right then wrong again, with... too many convenient romances, trumped-up crises and reversals of conscience to clear up while those poor whales suffer. Big Miracle isn't an entirely bad movie but a wholly misguided one.

-- Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times

--Compiled by Shane Minkin

Movie Review

Big Miracle

Starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski

Kildonan Place, Polo Park, Towne

G

107 minutes

Three stars out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 3, 2012 D7