After January, August is usually the second-worst month for new movies. It’s well past summer blockbuster season, and the fall movies hoping for upcoming awards nominations won’t be released for a few more weeks, so most August releases are pretty disappointing.
When the other new movies at the theater all look bad, I like to check streaming services like Amazon Prime to see if there were any smaller, less popular movies that didn’t play at the local theater but seem to be getting a lot of praise.
This is the case with “Pig,” a small and relatively simple drama about a man and his pig, but for star Nicolas Cage, it is one of his best performances in nearly two decades. After gradually going more bonkers in his acting choices — as well as choosing worse and worse projects just for the paycheck in order to pay off his debts — I almost forgot how great an actor he can be.
Thankfully, this is the exact type of movie I’ve been waiting for for years, perfectly capturing Cage’s talents seen in the likes of “Leaving Las Vegas” and “Bringing Out the Dead.” He’s still powerful and mesmerizing in all the same ways, but being so quiet and reserved makes him all the greater to watch.
Matching Cage’s presence on screen is a beautifully crafted story that is wonderfully brought to life by co-writer and director Michael Sarnoski in his big-screen debut. Initially advertised as “‘John Wick’ but with a pig,” the film ends up being both exactly what you’d expect and nothing like what you’d expect, and it’s all the better for it.
Robin Feld (played by Cage) is a reclusive and asocial truffle forager, living in a cabin deep in the Oregon forests and hunting for truffles with the help of his prized foraging pig. One night, he is assaulted by unidentified assailants who steal his pig.
Feld reaches out to Amir (Alex Wolff), a young, inexperienced supplier to high-end restaurants, to help him locate the pig, finding out it was sold to someone from downtown Portland. As Amir guides Feld through the city, he soon learns the hermit was a former Portland-based chef and major influence on dozens of top chefs in the city.
Following a series of leads that connect back to Darrius (Adam Arkin), Amir’s father and an old friend of Feld, the two will do everything in their power to retrieve the stollen pig while learning just how important the partnership is of food, family and life can be.
Besides being a perfect vehicle for Cage to show off his acting chops, the film is also a wonderful display of the beauty and art of food as not only what we eat to fuel our bodies but as a representation as who we are as diverse peoples and cultures. In the many TV series with famous chefs like Alton Brown, Gordon Ramsey or Anthony Bourdain, they always talk about the art of making the food and people sharing the meals being the most important aspect, and that is totally understood throughout “Pig.”
Although mostly a serious film dealing primarily with Feld’s missing pig, which leads to learning about other losses he and Amir have experienced, there is a surprising amount of subtle but clever humor throughout. Start with the fact that Cage plays a man who has been living alone in the woods for 15 years and has to go back to the big city and you already have the set up for a classic fish-out-of-water comedy.
But as the story progresses, Feld shows he knows a lot more than he lets on, leading Amir through a culinary world the young supplier realizes he never really knew or understood. On the one hand, it’s funny seeing this dirty old hermit show the kid in the suit how to survive the city, but it also helps Amir grow as Feld becomes the sort of mentor he doesn’t have in his father.
The movie may be called “Pig,” and the titular animal is a hugely important part of the narrative, but there is so much more to it than a man looking for his pig. And with Cage playing that man better than anyone ever could, it’s tough to not enjoy a master at his craft.
