Directed by: Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin
Rated R, 92 minutes
On the surface, “Pig” fits right into the filmography of Nicolas Cage. The quest of a reclusive mountain man to find his truffle-sniffing pig after robbers steal it, Michael Sarnoski’s debut film presents Cage in a leading role full of pent-up rage and animalistic vigor. It’s the kind of role that makes sense for the actor who screamed his lungs out while covered in bees in “The Wicker Man,” who shouted “Bring me the big knife!” in “Moonstruck” like it was his Marlon Brando “Stella!” moment. Even the softer-spoken conspiracy theory shenanigans of “National Treasure” are a logical precursor to “Pig,” Nicolas Cage as ever the epitome of the wild-eyed, unhinged American man.
Yet his performance in “Pig” is also deeply uncharacteristic. Viewers accustomed to a manic Nicolas Cage, his voice raised and face contorted, will be surprised to find him reining in his slapstick impulses, directing his energies inward instead. His character, Robin Feld, is a classically trained chef, once the king of the upper crust of Portland, Oregon, but now, years past his heyday, he lives in the woods like Thoreau, his hair unkempt, his legacy passing out of memory and into myth. Befitting a man whose reputation both precedes him and belies his current reality, Robin has a constant look of consternation on his face, as if in disbelief at how the world has changed since he retired to the mountains. Or maybe he’s in disbelief at how he’s changed and the world hasn’t.
“We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” he says in one scene, the line lingering until the chef he’s talking to, a bumbling sellout at an overly precious fine dining restaurant, tearfully gulps down his wine. Theatrics aside, the moment crystallizes the movie’s central idea of what makes humans fundamentally human. We are animals, “Pig” reminds us, and like animals hiding prized objects in their nests and burrows, so do people latch onto treasures both tangible and intangible, desperate for proof that we were here. It’s an endearing view of humanity, yet equally futile. In another scene, Robin explains to Amir (Alex Wolff, “Hereditary”), his companion and chauffeur for much of the movie, that Portland will eventually succumb to earthquakes and tsunamis and recede underwater. “We don’t have to care,” he adds, somehow both grim and blithe. When Amir asks why he’s going to all this effort to find his pig when he could just get a new one, he simply remarks, “I love her.”
The movie’s mix of plainspoken sentiment and off-kilter philosophizing makes it a constant puzzle, too mundane to be surreal but too absurd to be taken at face value. Sarnoski, who also wrote the script, treads this line carefully, combining an affectation at indie film realism—long takes, pregnant pauses, a brooding atmosphere, hand-held cameras—with an emphasis on the least believable aspects of the story. Robin’s quest to find his pig takes him to an underground fight club, where he takes a beating in order to get a lead in his search. It takes him to the house where he used to live, where he stops to talk with a child about persimmons. He meets Amir’s father, Darius (Adam Arkin, “A Serious Man”), a ruthless restaurant supplier, and after being ordered to leave Darius’s house, he returns with Amir to cook the man dinner; he replicates a meal he served him decades earlier, the details of which Robin recalls perfectly. Still, even as the story of “Pig” defies our realistic expectations, even as Robin speaks in non sequiturs and ignores the blood and dirt on his face, each scene abides strictly by a rule of calm understatement.
Like Cage’s face, which we rarely see full on, “Pig” defies a clear or singular reading. It’s a film of paradoxes and juxtapositions both big and small, meaningful and inconsequential. And while it’s easy to laugh off the premise as Nic Cage doing his Nic Cage thing—committing fervently to a role with outwardly ridiculous motivations—“Pig” finds the actor, long known for his over-the-top choices, trying on tenderness and simplicity. If the loss of his pig convinces Robin that the only permanent thing is impermanence, Nicolas Cage imbues the role with a quiet certainty that such losses are necessary if we’re ever to know what’s truly worth caring about.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 8/20/21.