Pig (2021)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Nicolas Cage delivers his finest performance in years, masking over many of the film’s storytelling flaws to create one of the most sympathetic and fascinating characters we have seen from him in quite some time.
Has held its buzz throughout 2021 to be a dark horse awards hopeful at the end of the year.
Gritty, uncompromising, and at times surprising, Pig never telegraphs its next steps and makes for a compelling viewing experience.
NO
Cage is elevating some rather choppy material, as Michael Sarnoski’s screenplay is tough to swallow at times.
Pig may be a tough watch for animal lovers.
Lives in bleak, dark places emotionally and even the attempts at humor have an air of cynicism and sadness. Those looking for something uplifting may come away empty-handed.
OUR REVIEW
Including voice work, Nicolas Cage has starred in more than 20 movies from 2017-2020. In that time period, a new “Nic Cage Flick” became as ubiquitous as daylight or the weekly special at your favorite diner. Honestly, for his loyal legion of fans, you could count on Nicolas Cage to kinda always be there in some new indie, low-budget action movie, or thriller on VOD (and rarely in theaters).
While Cage had, and still has, plenty of work, the opportunity for people to miss his better work is amplified by his ubiquity. So don’t blame yourself if you happened to miss Pig, a drama that shows Cage at his absolute best, carrying the water for a movie that struggles with a choppy screenplay but trusts its lead implicitly to deliver the emotion and dramatic heft required.
Directed and co-written by Michael Sarnoski, in his feature-length debut in both roles, Pig takes us off the grid to the remote wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. A scruffy, dirt-and-earth truffle hunter, Cage portrays Rob, who, along with his companion, a foraging pig with seemingly no name, finds delicacies for an upstart young distributor named Amir (Alex Wolff). Amir sells to the finest of fine dining establishments (or tries anyway) and continues to return to Rob’s dilapidated log cabin time and again for Rob’s latest haul.
One night, with no provocation, Rob is attacked and his pig is stolen. Coming awake the next morning, he has a singular-focus to find his pig. Roping in Amir, Rob, a former high-end restaurant owner and chef in a previous life, visits old haunts in and around Portland, Oregon, to track down his only friend in the world.
Sarnoski’s film is an oddity I suppose, but grounded in the bond someone in distress can make with seemingly anything. Watching Cage, I thought of my widowed father, 95 years young, who struggles to see, hear, and wrestles with cognitive decline. Despite so many things now out of his control, he still insists that his coffee is placed on a warming plate, his glasses reside in a certain location on his dresser, and he sets up an elaborate Rube Goldberg-style system that allows his door to remain open, just enough, so pets can walk in and out of his room any time they desire.
I mention all of this because my father needs something he can call his own. When all feels lost, we cling to things that we can control. For Rob, loss drove him to the woods. And wearing the same clothes for months, seeing his cabin fall further and further into ruin, his pig and those truffles, and the weekly arrival of Amir, are things he can count on, rely on, and essentially control.
Cage understands this pain clearly, as his performance is among the finest of his career. Rob has experienced painful loss tied to love. With his companion gone, he is revisiting and confronting emotions he thought he could bury in the woods around his cabin. With a raggedy beard, tattered clothes, and a whisper-rich intensity to his voice, Rob is at once intimidating and a curiosity. The contrast between Rob and Amir is one thing, but seeing Rob sit down in fine dining establishments with his look, presence, and intensity is a visual that never fails to disappoint.
Cage’s desperation parallels a desperation Amir feels in trying to make it in a world where his father, Darius (Adam Arkin), is a kingpin. Unbeknownst to Rob and Amir, Darius will complicate their quest exponentially, leaving Rob to wrestle with emotions that exist far beyond that of a missing foraging companion.
For all that’s good here - Cage, the juxtapositions he finds himself in, the emotional drama of the piece - Starnoski’s screenplay, co-written with producer Vanessa Block, is a bit of a mess and leaves more head-scratching moments to consider than that of a man desperate to find a missing pig.
Rob engages in an underground fight club full of restaurant employees. The story builds to a confrontation in a restaurant named Eurydice where Rob confronts an old colleague and we are left to wonder, in the context of the mythology, if food is the proverbial music and Rob is the one resurrected from the dead. A great 2020 documentary, The Truffle Hunters, showcased how cutthroat the trade can be. Do we really believe there is a secret underground in Portland, Oregon, with folks willing to go to drastic means to have a violent stronghold on the fine dining market?
I mean, maybe? Anything is possible, especially in Portland. Despite all the detours and strange scenes that feel incongruent and off-kilter to Starnoski’s main story, in the center of everything is Cage. Commanding, brooding, intense and vulnerable, he reminds us just how powerful a talent he truly is.
Whatever led to his decision to knock out those 20-plus movies over three years, Pig finds Cage fully committed and absorbed into his performance. As a result, he gives one of the year’s most tender, gruff, and can’t miss performances of 2021.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, Cassandra Violet, Julia Bray, David Knell
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Written by: Michael Sarnoski (screenplay); Michael Sarnoski, Vanessa Block (story)
Release Date: July 16, 2021
NEON