Brendan Fraser tries to save relationship with daughter Sadie Sink in the new trailer for The Whale

Viewers got a closer look into Brendan Fraser‘s heartbreaking portrayal of an English professor struggling with both a broken family and life-threatening morbid obesity with the release of the latest trailer for The Whale on Wednesday.

The more in-depth trailer delves further into the 600lb English professor Charlie (Fraser) and his relationship with his estranged teenage daughter (played by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink).

It also shares a bit of Charlie’s dynamic with his caretaker, a nurse named Liz (Hong Chau) who urges him to focus on his health.

The trailer arrives as The Whale — directed by Darren Aronofsky and adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his play of the same name — is already getting plenty of buzz in limited release before a planned wide expansion on December 21.

The trailer’s opening highlights how Charlie is still staying engaged with work, even as he appears to rarely leave his home due to his size.

He lectures a university English class virtually, but he keeps his camera turned off, making him a mystery of sorts to his students.

‘I know these rules can feel constraining, but remember, the point of this course is to learn how to write clearly and persuasively,’ Charlie tells his students. ‘Think about that. Think about the truth of your argument.’

But then Charlie’s estranged daughter Ellie (Sink) is introduced as she appears to ride a bus into town to meet her father.

‘You’re an amazing person, Ellie. I couldn’t ask for a more incredible daughter,’ Fraser says in voiceover as Sink explores his home.

But she doesn’t take kindly to the knowing comment after her father’s time away, as he left her and her mother when she was only eight.

”Are you actually trying to parent me right now?’ she snaps at him, but he proves to be his own harshest critic.

‘Who would want me to be a part of their life?’ he says.

The trailer departs from earlier clips by giving the first glimpses of Fraser’s full body, highlighting the realistic prosthetics he used to play a 600lb man.

Fraser has previously said that all of the prosthetics weighed an extra 300lbs, which made it a struggle just to breathe and move around.

Charlie has a soft smile on his face as he shares with Ellie that her mother — and his ex-wife — only speaks to him when it’s about their daughter.

‘Because that’s all I want to know about,’ he adds.

Fraser’s character also gives a brief explanation about his significant weight gain after Ellie quizzes him on it.

‘Someone close to me passed away, and it had an effect on me,’ he says vaguely as he holds up the photo of the man he fell in love with and left his family to be with.

Charlie tries to prep himself to spend more time with his daughter by shaving in the bathroom mirror, but his plans aren’t well received by his nurse Liz.

”You haven’t seen her since she was eight years old, and you’re going to reconnect with her?’ she says critically.

‘Sorry,’ Charlie replies numbly.

‘I don’t like this. This isn’t a good idea!’ she says fervently, which gets another ‘Sorry’ out of Charlie.

”You say you’re sorry one more time I will shove a knife right into you, I swear to God!’ Liz shouts in exasperation.

‘Go ahead! What’s it gonna do? My internal organs are two feet in at least,’ Charlie jokes with her.

It seems to lighten things up a bit, so she responds by tickling him and eliciting a giggle.

Liz continues in another scene: ‘Why do you suddenly need to see her so bad? Why now?’

Charlie says he doesn’t want his daughter to forget ‘what an amazing person she is.’

‘I need to know that she’s gonna have a decent life, where she cares about people, and that she’s gonna be OK’ he says in the next scene.

‘I need to know that I’ve done one thing right with my life!’ he screams, as we see him hooked up to an oxygen tank and with tears welling up in his reddened eyes.

The Whale is currently playing in limited release and will expand nationwide on December 21.