Pig

Director: Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, Darius Pierce, Cassandra Violet, Julia Bray, Elijah Ungvary, David Knell
Running Time: 92 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Nicolas Cage must have known something we didn't. Hardly the actor to conform to expectations or follow any kind of predictable career trajectory, there's always been talk about how the Oscar winner's choice of roles have flown off the rails in recent years, even by Cage standards. Annually churning out an onslaught of low budget, V.O.D. action titles led to criticisms surrounding everything from his financial situation to the unusual cries that he's wasting his talent in projects so clearly beneath him. But then something happened. The films got a little weirder, more interesting, and better. 

Regardless of how little seen Mandy or Color out of Space may have been, they were ambitious, visionary sci-fi head trips that reminded us Cage rarely phones it in or stops challenging himself, even as we sometimes scratch our heads at the choices. He gets it, and that's all that matters, constantly finding moments of invention and discovery within questionable characters and projects. It was only a matter of time before a fresh filmmaker came along and recognized this, coming up with something that perfectly plays to his biggest strengths as a performer. 

Michael Sarnoski's directorial debut, Pig, is eccentric in all the ways we've come to expect Cage movies to be, but there's an intelligence and melancholy to its story that allows the actor to do the kind of work we know he's capable of. It would be a different movie without him, possibly teetering on the edge of disaster due to the odd premise, but he keeps it afloat with his most affecting performance in years. Sarnoski's script takes its time exposing the mystery of this man, letting Cage fill in most of the blanks and avoiding a predictable path of bloodshed and violence that's accompanied some of the actor's more recent outings. This has more important things on its mind, delving into the relatable bond between man and animal before peeling back the layers to reveal the true loneliness at this reclusive protagonist's core. It's not for everyone, but even those who can't quite get on its unique wavelength should be able to respect the care and craft with which it's made. 

Robin "Rob" Feld (Cage) is a reclusive loner living off the grid in a cabin in the Oregon woods, where he spends his days hunting for truffles with his prized foraging pig. He's visited weekly by Amir (Alex Wolff), a young, inexperienced entrepreneur who buys the truffles from Rob, supplying the ingredients to a high-class restaurants in the Portland area. But when Rob is unexpectedly assaulted in the middle of the night and his pig is stolen by mysterious assailants, he must call on whatever contacts remain of his previous life to locate the animal, with whom he shares a deep bond that perplexes Amir. As he reluctantly chauffers a bruised, battered loner into the city's underbelly to follow a dangerous lead, the more we learn what drove him into the forest, as well as Amir's own history, which interects with Rob's in surprising, unexpected ways. As they get closer to discovering what happened to the pig, Rob doesn't even have to think twice whether it's worth the extreme danger he's putting them both in.    

With a hulking frame, dirty overalls, long, stringy unwashed hair and an unkempt beard, Rob is a man of few words, at first glance closely resembling a composite of the Unabomber. And Cage is so good at giving  nothing away in these early scenes other than his devotion to this pig, who more than just a pet or a means to him making an income, is the only family member he has. It's clear something happened to isolate Rob in this cabin and adapt a lifestyle he's made work for him, but to reveal exactly what, would spoil nearly all the film's surprises. 

With a sharp suit and bright yellow sports car, Amir couldn't appear more superficially different from Rob or unsympathetic to his plight, and while that initially appears to be true, the deeper they dive into this recluse's history, the more Amir's facade starts to crack. For a stretch, it nearly evolves into a buddy picture with Cage and Wolff, until we realize the stakes are higher than that, with Rob reentering a world in which he may be remembered, but not necessarily welcomed ever again. A Fight Club-like sequence when he offers himself up as a sacrifice for key information is difficult to watch, revealing the humiliating depths he needs to sink to reclaim what's rightfully his.

Heading down a path that seems to suggest a dark, violent thriller, the script instead leans further in the direction of sadness and regret, with Rob coming face-to-face with a world he abandoned and no longer holds a place for him. A scene in a posh restaurant where he confronts a chef is unbearably tense as a bloodied Cage calmly stares a hole through this guy, emotionally breaking him down with only a few painfully true words until he gets what he needs. More than any other sequence, it reveals who Rob was, or rather explains what he's become since. And once we find out all the details, it's tough to blame him for any of it. 

Cage does most of this work without utttering a word, using his body language to convey a broken, irreparably damaged soul whose name still carries just enough currency ten years out to garner some lingering respect, but also utter disbelief and pity. When the final showdown does come with the man responsible for what happened to his pig, it's settled not with fisticuffs or a shootout, but something more profound, that has more far-reaching, emotional ramifications for the three men involved. Everything about the last act is unusually restrained, finding Rob right back where he's meant to be, with a hint that perhaps he's been slightly altered, if not necessarily changed, by the traumatizing experience he's endured.