A screen turning point
Ellie in The Whale
Venice, Fraser’s return, and a daughter written sharp enough to draw blood.
She took the part after a 2021 Zoom with Aronofsky and Fraser. In interviews she kept asking whether Ellie was evil or simply in pain. Filming, she said, could be draining because it asked her to drop every layer of armor.
Owen Gleiberman in Variety wrote that she acts with a fire that recalls young Lindsay Lohan. Other critics found the part poorly written or the pitch too high. Sink has called it the moment she stopped seeing herself as a little puppet on a mark.