A friend of mine observed once that, with only a handful of exceptions, we don’t really think of characters played by Nicholas Cage by the character’s name, but we think of them as Nicholas Cage. Cage is such an idiosyncratic performer, often known for being, well, really weird onscreen. True, he’s got an Oscar at home and he is more than capable of turning in a “normal” performance, but when we think of him, we think of the guy screaming about bees and wearing bearsuits. True, he apparently loves his work, but he makes a lot of movies that often, at least on paper, sound really, really weird.
Let’s take his latest, Pig, where he’s a truffle hunter, living alone in the woods, who just wants his stolen pig back.
Rob (Cage), as his buyer Amir (Alex Wolff) knows him, is a scruffy-looking guy, living in a small shack in the woods with his pig. The pair hunt truffles, and Rob has a few secrets, none really devastating, mostly about what he did before he and took to living in the woods with a nameless pig. Then, one night, a pair break into his shack and steal the pig. Rob, who seems to have no interest into interacting with other people, let alone go into the nearby city of Portland, decides he needs to get his pig back, and for that, he’ll recruit an unwilling Amir to go through the underground world of the Portland restaurant scene to find out who took the pig and how to get it back. That pig means a lot to Rob…
On the surface, that sounds like some kind of revenge drama, but finding the pig may not be the hard part so much as getting it back from the person who has it. That said, Rob isn’t really a physical threat. His connection to Portland’s restaurants is deep, and his methods involve more just knowing who to talk to and what to say to them. He’s not John Wick by any stretch of the imagination. He even gets beat up a bit, leaving the blood stains running through his loose hair and scruffy beard until his business is done. Even when he’s staying in Amir’s place, he doesn’t take advantage of the amenities to get himself cleaned up. But there is a reason he left the city and moved out into the woods, and it isn’t exactly a surprise, but at the same time, the movie doesn’t, say, give Rob a big speech where he says what happens and why. The facts are presented and Rob’s reasons are implied by his facial expressions. This is a man in deep grief, and the pig may only be a part of it.
The end result is a movie that is more of a character study of both Rob and Amir as the two men bond during the search. Rob, largely silent, when he isn’t looking for the pig, is going around the places he used to live and work. Amir, someone who is trying to really make a name for himself in a business where the big success in the Portland food supply business comes from his father Darius (Adam Arkin), comes across initially as a bit of a wannabe who learns a thing or two about the people he works with and the hidden secrets of the city, some of which are quite absurd. Rob, whose longest speech may be one about how the city is literally doomed due to things beyond any person’s control, is also indirectly teaching the young man about what running a restaurant is really all about.
Anyone going into Pig hoping for another crazy Cage performance will be disappointed. He doesn’t raise his voice much and often says as little as he has to. He largely shuffles around everywhere with a mournful look on his face. Pig is not a movie about violent retribution but about a man in mourning, and none of the movie’s various “surprises” should be all that surprising to anyone paying attention. Instead, it’s about a man admitting things about himself out loud and making a friend, something he hasn’t done in the longest time. It just takes the hunt for a stolen pig to do that much. And I will admit…that is one cute pig.
Grade: A
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