pig movie review guardian

Pig review – Nicolas Cage hunts for a stolen animal in meditative drama

A familiar revenge thriller setup turns into something quieter and stranger with an unusually restrained performance from the outsized star

T he rabidity that surrounds the cult of Nicolas Cage – a baying midnight movie crowd urging the star to outdo himself with a performance even wilder than the last – has slowly become intolerable in recent years. The Oscar-winning actor, eschewing any semblance of a serious career, has happily obliged his fans, tearing up scenery and spitting it out with manic vigor. But while his outsized acting has proved mysteriously irresistible to some, I’ve found it increasingly grating, a dumb joke that stopped being funny a while ago.

Each new role, usually played to an 11 when a 7 would do, has pushed Cage deeper and deeper into tiresome self-parody, screaming and showboating rather than doing anything of interest, edging further away from the fine, and quiet, work he’s done in films like Leaving Las Vegas, Joe and The Weather Man. On paper, there’s something knowingly silly about his latest – a truffle hunter seeks revenge on whoever stole his pig – but in Michael Sarnoski’s muted debut, Cage is given the time and space to be sincere once again, a rare experience for him and a rewarding one for us. It’s not quite substantial enough to sit alongside his other career highs, but it’s effective enough to make us crave more challenges for Cage, to hear him whisper rather than shout.

In Pig, Cage plays Robin, a man living in the Oregon wilderness with just his pig for company. The pair survive by selling the truffles they find. But when his pig is taken in the middle of the night, Robin is forced to re-enter the world he turned his back on to find out why she was taken and how he can get her back.

It’s a set-up that loosely recalls the John Wick films or, more recently, Nobody and as such, Sarnoski is almost deliberately toying with our expectations of what a film like this starring an actor like Cage will be. We’ve been taught to await a violent backstory and a gnarly comeuppance, but from the early scenes – beautifully shot, slowly unfolding – it’s clear that this is not going to be the revenge thriller we expect. Instead, it’s a surprisingly mournful drama that’s less about getting one’s own back and more about getting one’s self back, an unusual journey that takes Cage, and us, deep into the surprisingly dark foodie world of gentrified Portland. As a renowned ex-chef returning to a city overrun with hipster eateries, he’s both confused and disappointed; but rather than poke fun at easy targets, Sarnoski’s script gives an even-handed view of change, showing how the city has gone too far ahead, but also how Robin has gone too far back.

Cage is remarkably restrained (bar one unnecessary scream), delicately deconstructing what we’ve come to expect from him. His trademark tics are gone, his voice that much softer, his swagger replaced by an unsureness, an aggressive blare that’s faded into calm. It’s his best work for years, bar admittedly low, and shows that underneath the lazy mugging to the cheap seats, he’s still a soulful and careful actor. The film hints at an encouraging new phase (even if his upcoming slate, including a role as Joe Exotic, suggests otherwise), an awareness of what can happen when he’s given the opportunity to do something other than high-volume theatrics. It also hints at exciting things to come from Sarnoski, a gifted visual film-maker, who has assembled a promising, if imperfect, debut.

Pig is ultimately as quiet as Cage is, for better or worse – sometimes too quiet to be truly distinctive, but moving in its look at how grief can throw us off our axis, especially in the film’s final moments. The film is about loss, but for Cage, it’s about finding something. Here’s hoping that he can find it again.

Pig is released in US cinemas on 16 July and in the UK on 20 August

• Nicolas Cage
• Drama films

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What a beguiling, confounding film “Pig” is. From start to finish, it never moves as you might expect it to. I watched it with a friend who checked out halfway through because it wasn’t the movie she was hoping it would be—basically “ John Wick ,” but with a pig, wherein a long-haired forest hermit named Rob ( Nicolas Cage ) gets bloody revenge against the criminals who kidnapped his truffle-hunting best friend. There are aspects of it that cannot be said to “work” in any conventional filmmaking sense, but it’s hard to imagine that the writer/director, Michael Sarnoski , and its star and co-producer, Nicolas Cage, lost a minute of sleep over anything like that, and its commitment to its own oddball vision is what makes it linger in the mind. For these reasons and more, “Pig” is on a short list of movies I loved that I wish I hadn’t been assigned to write about, because I so enjoyed not having any idea what I was in for. No matter how circumspect I try to be in this review, I’m certain to tell you something you’d rather have stumbled into on your journey. (There endeth the spoiler warning.)

The film begins with the hero, Cage’s quiet and introverted woodsman Rob, in a cabin with his pig, who is referred to only as Pig. We see them hunting for truffles together, and we watch Rob doting on Pig and cooking up mushrooms in a pan. Pig appears to have a knack for finding exquisite fungi. A younger man named Amir ( Alex Wolff ) shows up to buy a haul of truffles. We’re given to understand that Amir is Rob’s main source of income, but that he doesn’t need much because he’s committed to living off the grid, communing with nature and nursing a motherlode of grief over a woman. We don’t know how he lost her, only that he has audio recordings of her that he can’t bring himself to play. 

And then Pig is kidnapped in the middle of the night, pulled out of the house squealing. Rob is anguished. He wants to go to the nearest big city, Portland, because he’s pretty sure that’s where she is and he has a vague idea of who might’ve taken her. 

But if you’re expecting a rampage, you’d better find another movie. There’s a little bit of violence in this film. It’s unglamorous and brutal, and thus not easy to watch. But even though Cage’s shaggy man-mountain look evokes his star turn in 1997’s “ Con Air ,” this is not a revenge picture, or even much of an “action movie”  per se —unless you count scenes where Rob, a soft-spoken but keenly observant man, verbally batters other people by saying things that strike them in a deep place. He’s not being abusive, just telling the truth as he sees it. But the impact is devastating.

We don’t know anything about Rob when the movie begins, nor do we know what kind of world “Pig” is set in. Is it a realistic universe like “ Leave No Trace ” or something stylized, like in the Wick films? More the former than the latter, although there are somewhat unreal or expressionistic elements. 

The big one is the underground network of chefs, sous-chefs, restaurant owners, and food and equipment suppliers operating in and around Portland. This secret society appears to have a code, a history, and secrets. Rob was once a legendary part of it, until he dropped out for reasons that are not entirely cleared up by the movie’s end. Rob’s photographic memory comes in handy while trying to find Pig; in one scene, he identifies a maitre’d ( David Knell ) as somebody he worked with for exactly two months many long years ago. He reminds him of the fantasy restaurant he once described to Rob, and asks him whether he ever tried to make it happen.

It’s easy to see why Cage wanted to be in this movie. Rob is a great character, a philosopher-monk identified by Amir as a practicing Buddhist, but also a Christ figure, a clown, and a regular guy who, catastrophic losses notwithstanding, is too full of himself to connect and heal. He’s full of mystery and tenderness, with hints of repressed despair and rage. He doesn’t talk much at first, but grows more verbose as the story unfolds, probably as a result of Rob reentering society and being forced to use communication skills he’d been keeping in storage. The script and direction regard nature with the eyes of people who are comfortable in it. When the film moves to the city, the urban landscapes are as oppressive as the forest was comforting. 

Cage seems at home smell-testing mushrooms and searing them in a pan, enduring a savage beating, and philosophizing with various supporting characters, and bonding with Amir, the film’s second lead. The film’s treatment of Cage is reminiscent of the way Bill Murray was used by Wes Anderson in “ Rushmore .” It’s a young man’s empathetic fantasy of middle age. 

Pairing Rob and Amir throughout the movie rather than staying with Rob the whole time turns out to be the film’s masterstroke. As written by Sarnoski, and as played by Wolff, one of the most original young leading men in movies, Amir is as compelling a character as Rob, even though he lacks the older man’s ruined grandeur. He’s a self-aware mediocrity who would be less depressed if he were dumber and couldn’t see his own shortcomings so clearly. Amir thinks he is owed more than he has but isn’t sure why he feels that way and is not inclined to investigate or question that feeling. His truffle resale business in Portland is part of a strategy of wealth-chasing and self-improvement. His habit of obsessively listening to classical music and music education tapes in his car confirms that this is a person who feels that he has no class and is trying to acquire some via shortcuts. 

The young Jeff Goldblum and Richard Dreyfuss used to excel at playing characters like Amir. Wolff is in their weight class. There are several stunned reaction shots of Wolff in this film that are as entrancing as whatever Cage was doing to trigger that look, because Wolff is such a good listener that somehow you can feel him absorbing what’s happening in a scene even when the camera isn’t on him.

When the movie puts the two characters together in Amir’s car, or on a street where we can appreciate the actors’ extreme height difference, they become a classic comedy team: Rob the grizzled old prospector and Amir the urban neurotic, looking for a pig in the city. Even though it was shot in 2019, the sensibility of “Pig” is that of a mid-1970s picaresque character study about smart, sad guys living on the fringes—the kind of film that would have featured lens flares and zooms and slow-motion montages of people frolicking, and perhaps a harmonica-centric score by Henry Mancini . 

Accordingly, “Pig” freely commits to a storytelling aesthetic that will be described as slow, digressive, unfocused, and probably a lot other pejoratives by anyone who is not able or inclined to get on its admittedly peculiar wavelength. While conceding that it won’t be everyone’s, or even most people’s, cup of tea, I prefer to accept everything it does with an open mind and heart, because it’s so clearly an open-minded and open-hearted film. It’s attentive to regret and failure in ways that American films tend to avoid for fear of bumming viewers out and making them warn other people not to watch the movie. And it seems to understand the way people mythologize others and themselves, and the reasons it happens. The world of “Pig” is as desolate and cruel as ours, but smaller. Everybody in it seems to know everybody else. And still nobody cares. Except for the hero, who loves his pig.

Opens on Friday, July 16th.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Nicolas Cage as Rob
• Alex Wolff as Amir
• Adam Arkin as Darius
• Nina Belforte as Charlotte
• Gretchen Corbett as Mac
• Dalene Young as Jezebel
• Darius Pierce as Edgar
• Alexis Grapsas
• Philip Klein
• Brett W. Bachman
• Michael Sarnoski

Cinematographer

• Patrick Scola
• Vanessa Block

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‘Pig’ Review: Come Back, Trotter

Nicolas Cage plays a reclusive truffle hunter in this fiercely controlled character drama.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Shielded by a rat’s-nest beard and layers of decaying clothing, Rob (Nicolas Cage) lives in a rudimentary cabin in the Oregon wilderness with his beloved pig. Together, they forage for truffles that Rob barters for necessities when Amir (an indispensable Alex Wolff) makes his weekly visit. The truffles are bound for high-end Portland restaurants; when the pig is stolen, her owner will be compelled to follow the fungi.

“Pig,” Michael Sarnoski’s stunningly controlled first feature, is a mournful fable of loss and withdrawal, art and ambition. Told in three chapters and a string of beautifully delineated scenes, the movie flirts with several genres — revenge drama, culinary satire — while committing to none. Instead, Sarnoski takes us on an enigmatic journey as Rob searches for his pet and revisits a life he long-ago abandoned.

Pit stops at an underground fight club for restaurant workers, and at a favorite baker for a prized salted baguette, are both moving and strange, leaving us with more questions than answers. Once, Rob had stature in this world; now, in the words of Amir’s powerful father, Darius (Adam Arkin), he no longer even exists. Yet he and Darius are the same: twin disconsolates, imprisoned by heartbreak. And while “Pig” can at times feel engulfed by its own sullenness, there’s a rigor to the filmmaking and a surreal beauty to Pat Scola’s images that seal our investment in Rob’s fate.

Cage is superb here, giving Rob a subdued implacability and a voice that initially croaks from disuse and later swells with quiet conviction. When Rob delivers a speech about the madness of choosing profit over dreams, it lands with the full weight of an actor who seems to know whereof he speaks.

Pig Rated R for an extended beat down. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters.

‘Pig’ Review: Nicolas Cage Is at His Melancholic Best in This Strange, Sad Porcine Drama

A million miles from ‘Peggy Sue Got Married,’ Cage goes searching for his beloved truffle pig — and himself — in Michael Sarnoski’s intimate character study.

By Michael Nordine

Michael Nordine

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Nicolas Cage isn’t just an actor; he’s a state of mind. Having transcended meme status with evocative performances in director-driven genre fare like “Mandy” and “Color Out of Space,” the Oscar winner delivers his best performance in years as a chef-turned-recluse who briefly reenters society in writer-director Michael Sarnoski ’s “ Pig .” His return isn’t a happy one, however: Robin (Cage) only leaves the Oregonian wilderness after his beloved truffle pig is violently taken from him. Less revenge thriller than intimate character study, “Pig” is above all else a reminder that Cage is among the most gifted, fearless actors working today.

Robin’s routine is simple: He and his pig forage for truffles picked up once a week by his sole contact with the outside world (Alex Wolff), with many fine meals and quiet moments in between. It’s clear from the outset that this bearded, disheveled man isn’t entirely well and was driven into the woods by an unspecified trauma he’s in no rush to share with the world, but the humble existence he and his unnamed pet have been eking out seems to be enough for him — in some ways it’s even idyllic. It can’t last, of course, and we’ve only just met the precocious porker when she’s kidnapped by unidentified evildoers.

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What first impresses about “Pig” is the way it manages to feel both out there and grounded, often at the same time. Aside from the obviously far-fetched nature of its premise, it includes everything from an underground fight club for restaurant workers to chapter titles like “Rustic Mushroom Tart” and “Mom’s French Toast and Deconstructed Scallops.” But it never slips into absurdity, with Sarnoski’s sparse dialogue complemented by a fittingly low-key score courtesy of Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein. That’s also why it’s impossible to imagine anyone but Cage in the lead role: No one else can simultaneously embrace and elevate inherently ridiculous plot developments like he can while finding something close to the profound in it all.

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“I remember a time when your name meant something to people, Robin,” comments the first person he sees upon his return to Portland. “But now? You have no value. You don’t even exist anymore.” The secret of this past self hums alongside the mystery of the pig’s whereabouts, and is no less compelling for the fact that Robin’s heartbreak is visible in every line on his face and every grey hair on his head. Cage pours himself into the performance, bringing a blunt earnestness to laugh cues like “I don’t fuck my pig” and “Your dad sounds terrible” that manage to be funny without allowing us to laugh at Robin.

None of this would be as effective were it not for Wolff, who plays off Cage with aplomb. The two end up a kind of odd-couple comedy duo, with Max as the straight man trying to keep a low profile and Robin as the unkempt oddball who, throughout the entire ordeal, never wipes the blood off his face or cleans the wounds he sustained while his beloved was being taken from him. Then there’s the unnamed pig herself, who’s both a MacGuffin and a compelling presence despite her limited screen time. Anyone who saw “Gunda” knows how soulful our porcine friends can be, and so it is here.

They never should have taken the pig, just as they never should have taken that stuffed bunny in “Con Air,” but Robin never gives the impression that he’s on the warpath and those who wronged him are about to be sorry. However much we may want “Pig” to turn into something like “John Wick,” Sarnoski refuses the temptation at every return — our hero is simply too worn down to do the sort of things we’re used to seeing Cage do.

As a descent into the apparently high-stakes world of truffle-pig-poaching, “Pig” is unexpectedly touching; as a showcase for Cage’s brilliance, it’s a revelation. “We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” Robin tells a fellow chef at the end of a stirring monologue about our aspirations, the fleeting nature of success, and everything in between. Whether it be truffles, animal companions, or something entirely different, we should all be lucky enough to care about something as much as Robin cares about his pig, regardless of how it turns out.

Reviewed online, Denver, Co., July 10, 2021. Running time: 92 MIN.

• Production: A Neon, AI Film presentation of a Pulse Films, Blockbox Entertainment, Valparaiso Pictures, Saturn Films production, in association with Endeavor Content. Producers: Vanessa Block, Dimitra Tsingou, Thomas Benski, Ben Giladi, Dori Rath, Joseph Restanio, David Carrico, Adam Paulsen, Steve Tisch, Nicolas Cage.
• Crew: Director: Michael Sarnoski. Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski; story: Michael Sarnoski, Vanessa Block. Camera: Patrick Scola. Editor: Brett W. Bachman. Music: Alexis Grapsas, Philip Klein.
• With: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, Nina Belforte, Cassandra Violet, Julia Bray, Elijah Ungvary, Beth Harper, Brian Sutherland, David Shaughnessy, Gretchen Corbett.

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Pig is Now Best-Reviewed Live-Action Movie of Nicolas Cage's Career

The story of a man and his hammy best friend features an unexpectedly career-best performance that critics have embraced..

TAGGED AS: Film , films , movies

(Photo by Neon)

When the Pig trailer surfaced ahead of its July theatrical debut, audiences were baffled. Was this Nicolas Cage movie, ostensibly the story of a Pacific Northwest recluse and his stolen truffle pig, going to be a revenge thriller like Mandy ? Would it be in the realm of recent Rage Cage (TM) genre offerings, including Willy’s Wonderland and Color Out of Space ?

Pig  – which hits platforms today like Vudu and Amazon Prime – is, in fact, nothing like those. And what  Pig reveals itself to be is perhaps even more audacious: A deeply melancholic and meditative drama, with a towering, career-best performance from Cage as the withdrawn yet sympathetic former chef Rob Feld, who cuts into the dark underbelly of the gourmet dining scene. In our Critics Consensus, we sum it up: “Like the animal itself, Pig defies the hogwash of expectations with a beautiful odyssey of loss and love anchored by Nicolas Cage’s affectingly raw performance.”

With such a full trough of laurels and plaudits, no surprise then that Pig is currently the best-reviewed live-action movie of Cage’s career: It’s Certified Fresh with a Tomatometer score of 97% after 151 reviews.

“I wanted to get back to a kind of a quiet, meditative, internalized performance,” Cage tells us in a recent interview . “It was something that I felt I had the life experience for and the memories and the dreams, if you will, to portray without forcing it.”

In our list of every Nicolas Cage movie ranked by Tomatometer , you’ll see that Pig ‘s Tomatometer score actually matches Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ‘s, where he voiced Spider-Man Noir. But since Spider-Verse has more reviews (391 total) hanging off its 97% score, we give the no. 1 spot to the beloved animated superhero blockbuster.

Other Certified Fresh Nic Cage movies in the 90th-percentile include Leaving Las Vegas (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar), Teen Titans Go! To the Movies , Raising Arizona , Adaptation , Face/Off , and Moonstruck .

Pig   is in theaters and streaming now. 

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Nicolas cage in ‘pig’: film review.

The actor stars in Michael Sarnoski’s Oregon-set debut feature about an off-the-grid truffle hunter who returns to the city in search of his kidnapped foraging pig.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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Like every creative business, the world of fine dining is a mélange of art and commerce, love and ambition. For Rob, the profoundly scruffy hermit at the center of Pig , it’s a cutthroat industry that he put in the rearview mirror 15 years ago. Subsisting as a hunter of prized truffles in the backwoods of Oregon, he hasn’t entirely severed the cord to Portland’s high-end restaurant scene. But when it comes to human interaction and enterprise, everything about him says “I don’t give a damn” — until someone steals his adored truffle-hunting pig, and, like the world’s scraggliest action hero, he sets out to find her.

There’s an undeniable WTF factor to the idea of Nicolas Cage , American movies’ most devotedly erratic wild man, rasping “I want my pig.” First-time feature writer-director Michael Sarnoski, working from a story he wrote with producer Vanessa Block, lets the underlying comic dissonance register without turning his drama into a joke. Pig isn’t the gripping mystery Sarnoski might have intended, but as a crawl through the underbelly of a hipster city’s glamorous foodie culture, it’s a gutsy narrative recipe, even if the final dish is less than the sum of its ingredients. Through it all, Cage plays the enigmatic central character at the perfect simmering temperature, and without a shred of ham.

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Release date: Friday, July 16

Director-screenwriter:  Michael Sarnoski

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin

It’s nine minutes into the film before Rob speaks: a few muttered words to his porcine partner, a devoted creature with a tail-wagging, puppy-like demeanor — and one who’s blessedly never reduced to cute animal reaction shots. The only regular visitor to Rob’s remote cabin is Amir ( Alex Wolff ), an ambitious up-and-comer who buys the precious fungi from him, in turn selling them to chefs in the city. The always compelling Wolff offers an arresting contrast to Cage’s seething stillness, deftly signaling the self-doubt beneath Amir’s fidgety snark. In the old-growth forest, with its mystical, edge-of-civilization serenity (captured in painterly strokes by DP Pat Scola), the young man’s garish yellow sports car might as well be a flying saucer.

Their nonexistent rapport notwithstanding, it’s Amir’s help that Rob enlists after the pig is abducted in a violent nighttime break-in — and after Rob’s rackety old truck dies before he can get to the city, where he’s sure he’ll find the culprit. Once his protagonist is away from his rudimentary lair, Sarnoski’s screenplay takes him on a tragicomic descent into hell, one that revolves around high-stakes matters of money and status, truffle poaching, the purveying of comestibles, and the perceived golden-goose value of a pig.

At their darkest and most grungy, the stops along this passage through Hades (culminating in a visit to a restaurant called Eurydice) can’t quite shake off the feel of screenwriterly indulgences, notably in a pummeling visit to a subterranean fight club for restaurant workers, run by some kind of hotshot named Edgar (Darius Pierce). The sequence leaves Cage’s searcher even more beaten and bloodied than he already was from the kidnappers, but this time in a way that perhaps satisfies some deep-seated need or quells a traumatic grief. “You don’t even exist anymore,” Edgar tells him, but Rob’s beating has made clear to the audience — and to Amir — just how much of a contender Rob once was, and how much of a legend among Portland’s culinary cognoscenti.

As Amir helps Rob gain entry to top-notch eateries in search of the perpetrator, it’s telling that he’s less embarrassed about Rob’s unkempt mountain-man appearance than he is about stepping into territory controlled by his father (Adam Arkin). It’s the old man’s career as “king of rare foods” that Amir emulates, but they’re competitors, not partners or allies. When talking about his father, this rich kid can’t quite finish his sentences. Wolff wields those uncomfortable fadeouts with emotion-packed nuance, a subtlety he also brings to scenes of gothic horror at the family mansion.

Rob’s relentless search crescendos when, in filthy clothes and with his face caked in dried blood, he sits down to lunch at one of the city’s hottest white-tablecloth spots. Wolff makes Amir’s behind-the-scenes finagling for the reservation a finely tuned balancing act of assertion and self-erasure. (Earlier, he delivers the film’s best throwaway line, when Amir tells a restaurant employee who’s suspiciously eyeing the longhaired and fashion-backward Rob, “He’s Buddhist.”)

There’s something perversely satisfying (and a little bit Portlandia ) about watching Rob among the lunchtime see-and-be-seen at Eurydice, a citadel of molecular gastronomy. At the center of the sunlit room, Cage is a vortex of charged expectancy. Still, the scene’s jabs at trendiness — the worship of locally sourced ingredients, the sous vide and foam and smoke — feel anything but fresh, There’s one line that’s a crucial exception, but most of Rob’s words of warning and wisdom to the eatery’s careerist chef (David Knell), a nervous mass of faux smiles, feel like well-chewed and reconstituted morsels, less deep than meets the eye.

As to what’s pure and true, Sarnoski stacks the deck. He divides the film into three sections, each named for a recipe or a meal, the first of which, “Rustic Mushroom Tart,” establishes the simple, unrefined integrity of Rob and his cooking (which he shares with his beloved pig). Eventually it’s revealed that the restaurant that put him on the foodie map was named Hestia, after the Greek goddess of the hearth. So there’s that.

Whatever the screenplay’s stumbles, Cage’s contained performance embraces his character’s losses and his turning away from the world without the slightest play for sympathy. Whatever Rob’s emotional damage, the way he carries himself suggests a man who knows his worth and his talent. It’s too bad that, in a climactic moment, Sarnoski’s otherwise solid direction leaves his star adrift.

But the final scene delivers unexpected shivers of longing and connection. A disembodied voice from the past (Cassandra Violet) fills in a piece or two of Rob’s story. This happens in a way that spells out nothing. There’s no recipe for it, just the forest and its cleansing, complicating light.

Full credits

Distributor: Neon Production companies: Ai Film, Endeavor Content, Pulse Films, Blockbox Entertainment, Valparaiso Pictures, Saturn Films Cast: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, Cassandra Violet, Darius Pierce, David Knell Director-screenwriter: Michael Sarnoski Story by Vanessa Block, Michael Sarnoski Producers: Nicolas Cage, Steve Tisch, David Carrico, Adam Paulsen, Dori Roth, Joseph Restaino, Dimitra Tsingou, Thomas Benski, Ben Giladi, Vanessa Block Executive producers: Len Blavatnik, Aviv Giladi, Danny Cohen, Marisa Clifford, Tim O’Shea, Michael Sarnoski, Robert Bartner, Yara Shoemaker, Bobby Hoppey Director of photography: Pat Scola Production designer: Tyler Robinson Costume designer: Jayme Hansen Editor: Brett W. Bachman Music: Alexis Gapsas, Phillip Klein Casting director: Simon Max Hill

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Pig review: Nicolas Cage’s terrific performance proves he’s more than a meme

His acting often unfairly reduced to gifs and slogans, cage puts in a profoundly moving turn as the bereft owner of a kidnapped truffle pig in michael sarnoski’s feature debut, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Michael Sarnoski. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin. Cert 12A, 92 mins

I’ve become conflicted about the ongoing memeification of Nicolas Cage . All these internet compilations of him howling “How'd it get burned?” or “I’m a vampire!”, clipped from scenes in The Wicker Man or Vampire’s Kiss are, on one level, small celebrations of his unparalleled audacity as an actor. Very few could deliver a scene like the closing moments of 2011’s Drive Angry , where Cage chugs beer out of an enemy’s bloodied skull with the lackadaisical resignation of a dad at a Little League baseball game.

But it all comes at the risk of reducing him to a punchline – and that breeds far too many sincere accusations that he’s a terrible actor. I can only hope that Pig , his latest project, will put a few of those disbelievers in their place. Cage isn’t a maximalist for the hell of it. He is someone who remains unwaveringly, fiercely present in each of his performances. When he describes his acting style as "Nouveau Shamanic”, it’s not just about forging a connection to a character, but inviting that character to possess his body and soul. And Pig is a beautiful demonstration of what that nuance looks like when it’s properly deployed by a talented director.

Writer-director Michael Sarnoski, here making his feature debut, is particularly ingenious in the way he toys with the public’s expectations of Cage as a performer. Pig , in its opening scenes, appears to set itself up as a traditional revenge thriller, albeit with a small twist – imagine Taken if Liam Neeson wasn’t trying to rescue his kidnapped daughter but his kidnapped truffle pig.

Cage plays Robin “Rob” Feld, a former Portland chef turned recluse, who’s boarded himself up in a woodland cabin with nothing but his porcine bunkmate for company. Once a week, he receives a visit from supplier Amir (Alex Wolff), who’ll take any truffles he’s collected and sell them off to the city’s high-end restaurants. But, one night, Rob is assaulted and his pig is taken from him. Early on, Sarnoski hints that Rob may have suffered a terrible loss and that his only means of survival is to remove himself entirely from the world that so deeply wounded him. That pig was all he had left – and he’ll do anything to get her back.

The expectation here, of course, is that Pig will be another Cage-branded descent into madness. And while it carries with it a near-constant tension that Rob may, at some point, finally explode, what Cage really brings to the role is that sense of profound connection – one that here evokes the wordless but sacrosanct relationship that a person can have with the food that they eat or cook.

Pig is at its very best during its scenes of food preparation, as Sarnoski allows his film to quiet down to a whisper. Cage’s Rob may be half-hidden behind his mountain-man beard, straggly hair, clotted blood (from the attack, which he never thinks to wash off), and dishevelled clothes, but it only brings greater attention to how lost and soulful those crystal-blue eyes can look. It’s a quality that’s rarely been taken advantage of since his early days as the Eighties dream boy of Peggy Sue Got Married and Valley Girl .

Pig may belong to Cage, but it doesn’t work solely because of him – and he’s found an excellent scene partner in Wolff. The former Nickelodeon star has transformed his career by subverting expectations and chasing darker, more adventurous projects like My Friend Dahmer and Hereditary . Over time, he’s carved out an impressive niche for himself, mastering a specific kind of sweaty desperation barely concealed by twitchy confidence – exactly the personality you’d imagine for an upstart truffle supplier. Pig shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone who’s been following these men’s careers, but it’s a perfect reminder of how easily we can underestimate people.

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‘Pig’ Review: Nicolas Cage Shines in This Gentle and Somber Tale of a Fragile World

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Jeff Bridges and Jane Fonda's Chemistry Elevates This Forgotten Psychological Thriller

This actor’s acceptance speech is the reason the oscars cut off winners, the janis joplin biopic just nabbed an unlikely lead.

Nicolas Cage does a lot of bad movies that seem deeply questionable for a man who is not only a talented actor, but one who has been part of some of the greatest movies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. And yet when you see him leading films like Primal , Kill Chain , A Score to Settle , and Running with the Devil that all come out in a single year (2019) and evaporate as quickly as they hit VOD, you’re left to wonder what exactly he’s doing with his career other than cashing paychecks. And that’s a shame because then a film like Pig comes along and gets grouped into that kind of movie when it’s far more than its simple logline of “Reclusive man goes looking for his stolen pig.” Rather than the scenery-chewing Cage that folks claim they like to see, this is the Cage of quieter movies like Joe with a largely soft-spoken performance that shows Cage still knows how to bring it when the picture demands that kind of work from him. Michael Sarnoski ’s movie is a sad, melancholy affair of grasping for the last remnants of the things that matter in a world where we have so little to hang on to.

Rob (Cage) is a recluse living in the woods outside of Portland with his truffle-hunting pig. It’s a quiet existence where his only contact with the outside world is the brash, egotistical Amir ( Alex Wolff ), a young man who drives up in his bright yellow Camaro every Thursday to purchase truffles from Rob. In the middle of the night, unknown assailants break into Rob’s cabin, knock him out, and steal his pig. Bloody and beaten, Rob ventures out and requires Amir to be his ride. A reluctant Amir, who’s working to be a part of Portland’s restaurant scene and sees truffles as a valuable asset in that ascent, decides he has no choice to cart Rob around on his quest. As they go searching, Amir learns that Rob is far more than some hermit looking for a pig, and that his search isn’t just about looking for a creature that can dig up truffles.

RELATED: Why 'Joe' Is Nicolas Cage's Most Underrated Performance of the 2010s

I worry about a film like Pig because it’s technically a Nicolas Cage vehicle while being far different than most of his recent output. If I told someone the logline, I wouldn’t be surprised if they expected Cage to be shouting and beating people up looking for his pig. Basically, they would think it could be John Wick but a pig instead of a puppy. Pig is not that movie. Cage doesn’t punch anyone. He rarely raises his voice. Instead, Cage reminds us that while he can bring delightful lunacy in movies like Mandy , when he exercises restraint he can really burrow into a character as he does here. Rob is one of his more fascinating roles and the story of Pig isn’t so much about finding the pig (although that’s the plot that moves the story along) as much as it’s about Amir (and the audience) discovering what would drive someone like Rob to live removed from society while also feeling the need to break that seclusion to find a pig.

Sarnoski frames this quest beautifully with gorgeous cinematography that also highlights Rob’s psyche, particularly throught the motif of doorframes. Rob is a man who has consciously left a domestic, settled existence and chosen to live on a semblance of the frontier. His last human relationship is with Amir, and it’s a tenuous one where the two men don’t really know each other, and yet while Rob has utmost certainty in his current existence, Amir is constantly putting on a show to mask his own insecurities. This conflict further highlights Rob’s worldview as a man who can’t be part of our world because it’s simply too fleeting and he’s already lost what mattered most to him. As Pig unfolds, we can see that the pig is the last thing that Rob truly loves in this world and even that has been taken from him despite his simple existence. Pig is not a story of revenge, but one of loss.

Some may find Pig a disappointment because it’s not Cage going wild searching for a lost pig, but that would be a disservice to both Cage’s work here and Sanroski’s film overall. We need to make room for Cage still doing these kinds of roles and cheer for them when he does. There’s no sign Cage will stop doing his forgettable VOD work, and look, I’m not going to begrudge the man his money, especially when he still finds time to do good work like Pig , Mandy , and Joe . I’ll admit it’s weird to say, “The movie about Nicolas Cage looking for his lost pig made me sad and anxious about our fragile place in the world and forced me to look at what I truly value in a chaotic and unpredictable universe,” but that’s the truth. Pig is not the film we’ve come to expect from Cage these days. Thank goodness.

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• Nicolas Cage

'Pig' Review: Nicolas Cage Gives One Of His Best Performances In This Haunting Drama

" Nicolas Cage is a guy looking for his stolen pig," the general premise of  Michael Sarnoski 's elegant, haunting, mournful movie Pig , likely inspires more than a few assumptions. You'd be forgiven for assuming that a movie like that would be some sort of goofy, indie  John Wick  knock-off. You'd also be forgiven for assuming that Cage, playing the man searching for his pilfered porcine pal, goes over the top. After all, Cage has become legendary for becoming unhinged on screen. And he's become notorious for appearing in a lot of junk, too.

But within moments of starting,  Pig demands you leave all those assumptions behind you. Because  Pig is not the movie you think it is. It's something far more beautiful, and far more painful. It is an existential meditation on the search for  something. Anything . A kind of cosmic loneliness envelopes this film. It's extraordinary.

Cage is Rob, a mysterious, grizzled man who lives out in the wilderness with only his truffle-hunting pig for company. By day, Rob and the pig take to the woods in search of fancy fungi. By night, they return to a ramshackle cabin, where the pig has its own little bed mere inches away from Rob's. The only real human contact Rob has is with Amir ( Alex Wolff ), a hotshot trying to make a name for himself in the Portland restaurant scene. Amir stops by in his cool car on Thusdays to purchase Rob's truffles.

Rob's life is simple, quiet. Watching him is like watching part of the scenery – as if the character is blending into the nature he inhabits. These early moments have an earthy quality that teases our scenes; we can smell the woods, the dirt, the small little private world Rob inhabits. But this tranquility will not last. Late one night, a pair of drug addicts burst into Rob's home, knock him out, and steal his pig. It's a harrowing, horrifying scene, made all the more disturbing by the human-like screams emitting from the kidnapped pig. It breaks your heart.

Here is where you might think the movie turns into  John Wick But With a Pig Instead of a Dog . "Ah-ha!" you might say after the big, brutal pig snatching scene. "Now Nic Cage is going to go  crazy and enact bloody revenge against those who wronged him!" But remember:  Pig is not the movie you think it is. Bloody and bruised, Rob picks himself up and sets out to find his pig, dragging Amir along with him. Rob has no means of transportation, so Amir becomes his reluctant chauffeur.

As Rob and Amir search for the pig, Rob's backstory comes clearer into focus. We learn he was once a renowned chef, but that he's been off the grid for 15 years. That time away hasn't diminished his celebrity, though. If anything, it's made it stronger. When Rob enters a restaurant and the people working there realize who he is, they're awed, as if they're having some sort of religious experience. As if Rob was the Pope and they were the faithful ready to bury their faces in his vestments.

Writer-director Sarnoski does a fair amount of subtle world-building here. Rob and Amir are not moving through the restaurant scene as you or I would. They're instead traveling through backrooms and places where regular customers would not be welcome. A surreal quality unfolds here, as if we're not entirely sure if what we're witnessing is meant to be taken seriously, or if it's supposed to be some heightened, fantasized underground world. It's a world where things can get violent, and nasty. Where secret chef fight clubs take place in basements and dank rooms that have never experienced a single sliver of sunlight.

Rob moves through this world seeming both at ease and an outsider. He knows he's a legend; he knows he is a chef unlike any other. But he also wants to be left alone. Were it not for his pig, he would not be bothering with this world again. Cage plays all of this with a subtle grace that is bound to shock folks who have come to (wrongly) believe that the actor plays everything big and loud. Yes, Cage can go coo-coo sometimes – there's no arguing against that. Yet there is so much more to the actor's talents that so many people willingly overlook. They want Cage to be a walking meme, and Cage seems willing to indulge this – up to a point. But he's also capable of true nuance, and beauty. He's one of our most fascinating working actors, and here he delivers one of the best performances of his entire career. A soulful, introspective, melancholy performance that is so strong, so present, that it carries real weight.

Wolff makes for a great companion on this journey. His twitchy, blustery character is constantly acting bigger than he really is, and just as we learn more about Rob as the story unfolds, we also learn more about Amir, and his background involving a demanding, powerful father, played by  Adam Arkin , who shows up late in the film and makes quite an impression, making sure every single second of his small screentime counts.

Rob is a lost soul, and as we all are in our own little ways. He's not just searching for his pig, he's also searching for some sort of truth, some sort of beauty. His cooking is his art, and it's something perhaps too pure to share with the world regularly. Perhaps that's why he dropped off the face of the earth and hid his gifts away. Now, as he continues his search, he once again finds himself cooking for others. They bite into Rob's food and unlock memories and dreams long since tucked away and lost.  Pig is a lot like Rob's food, awakening something within us. We come away changed, tears in our eyes.  Pig is not the movie you think it is.

/Film Rating: 9 out of 10

Screen Rant

Pig review: nicholas cage revenge drama is a beautiful, evocative odyssey.

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Added 1 Fun Detail To Betelgeuse's Origins Story, Writers Explain Burton's Input In Backstory

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Revenge dramas are generally triggered by a sense of sudden loss, one that becomes the basis for a lone figure to take on the world at large. Be it John Wick’s mercurial wrath being ignited after losing his beloved dog, Daisy, or a frenetic Bryan Mills hell-bent on saving his daughter in Taken , revenge dramas usually cater to a series of set expectations from a narrative point of view. However, this is not the case with Michael Sarnoski’s Pig , which unravels in ways uncharacteristic of a revenge thriller but manages to make every aspect work while defying genre expectations. An intense slow-burn, Pig is a beautiful meditation on the true meaning of loss, replete with vignettes drenched in humor, pathos, and violence.

Pig opens with the lush greenery of the Oregon woods, home to a lone, heavily bearded man named Rob (Nicholas Cage), whose sole companion is a truffle-hunting pig. Rob spends his days in his isolated cottage, training his pig to scavenge valuable fungi, which he sells to a needlessly upbeat youth named Amir (Alex Wolff). Hints about Rob’s past are tentatively dropped via numerous visual cues, such as the way he carefully folds the dough for the rustic mushroom tart he makes for himself and the beloved animal, immersing himself in the heavenly aroma of the fresh ingredients used. This domestic bliss is soon disrupted when a group of unseen figures steal Rob’s pig in the dead of night, which is a common occurrence in the wildly cutthroat underbelly of the culinary world. Emotionally devastated, Rob turns to Amir to drive him to Portland in an effort to track his prized companion.

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What ensues is series of unpredictable events, concerning a secret passageway in a restaurant, an underground fight club, a startling revelation, and an arresting conversation in a pretentious Michelin restaurant. Rob’s true identity is gradually revealed, and it soon becomes clear that the name Robert Felt means a great deal in the culinary industry, to the point of evoking gratitude, awe, and fear. It is interesting to note that Pig is not a run-of-the-mill revenge thriller, as it lingers on moments that are pregnant with pathos, rife with observations about existence that weigh heavy on the characters involved.

In a particularly fascinating scene, where Amir serves Rob French toast and deconstructed scallions for breakfast, the latter plunges into the futility of a transactional existence, which can be wiped away in an instant by a natural calamity. The extent to which humans scheme, negotiate, hustle, and often double-cross one another to gain certain things in life appear extreme, cruel even, in the face of things that truly matter. One of the greatest strengths of Pig is the way in which Sarnoski rations the reveals about its key characters. These revelations are never too on-the-nose, or dealt with in ways that feel staged or inorganic - interestingly, an air of mystery still surrounds Rob right up to the final shot, which is not an easy feat to master.

Formidable restaurant product broker Darius, played with steely resolution by Adam Arkin, emerges as a key obstacle between Rob and his animal, which can only be won over by the power of food. The rich delicacy of working with textured aromas, the act of breaking bread together, and the gesture of crafting a dish for someone, can be deemed a lost love language in today’s transactional culture, the value of which is highlighted by Pig in somber and beautiful ways.

Despite being an emotional rollercoaster, Pig never feels bloated, as it manages to remain grounded throughout its runtime. This is made possible by Cage’s incredible performance as Rob, a man who refuses to be medically treated despite being caked in his own blood, speaking in measured whispers while his eyes shine with a deadly intensity. Wolff is also impressive as the wonderfully dynamic Amir, who strikes up an endearing companionship with a man who has experienced inconsolable loss. While not every question is answered, such as the exact reason why Rob chose to shed his former life and go off-the-grid, or what happened to the woman whose cassette tapes still lay around his house, Pig is an emotionally gratifying experience like no other.

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Pig is playing in U.S. theatres as of July 16, 2021, courtesy of Neon. The film is 92 minutes long and is rated R for language and some violence.

Starring Nicolas Cage, Pig centers on a truffle hunter in Oregon who returns to his former home in Portland to track down his beloved pig that was stolen from him. The drama mystery was directed by Michael Sarnoski, who would go on to direct the Quiet Place spinoff titled A Quiet Place: Day One.

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“Pig,” Reviewed: Nicolas Cage Is the Only Reason to Watch

The truffle is a bridge object, spanning nature and culture, rustic ways and urbane refinements. Because it’s not grown but found, a culinary gemstone demanding physical labor, venerable traditional knowledge, and amazing animals, it’s an automatic symbol and a cipher that merely awaits the application of chosen meanings. “Pig,” written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (who co-wrote the story with Vanessa Block), is, in that regard, a truffle of a movie, and its premise marks the precious fungus with a hand-wavingly wide and vague symbolism that permeates the entire story, which strains to mean so much and to matter so much that it vitiates itself into illustrative, portentous absurdity. The film is redeemed only by the dour, weary, mournful, stubborn, and wise performance of Nicolas Cage, which is not so much a star turn as the project’s sole raison d’être.

Cage plays a hermit named Robin Feld who lives in a cabin in the woods of Oregon, with his truffle pig. Robin’s isolation is nearly total—he has one client for his truffles, a slick and glib young man named Amir (Alex Wolff), who drives up in a conspicuously expensive sports car and spatters Robin with wisecracks while paying for the delicacies. But Robin’s isolation is emblazoned, from the start, with a very conspicuous single root cause: he is in mourning for a woman, whose death—never dated, never explained—has driven him out of society.

Then, shortly after Amir’s most recent visit, intruders break in, slam Robin to the floor, and steal the pig. There are obvious shades of “John Wick,” both in the uxorious grief and in the animal story. But, unlike Keanu Reeves’s vengeful hitman, Robin isn’t out for revenge, just for his pig. He’s got no one to turn to except Amir, who is persuaded to drive him to the nearby metropolis of Portland. There, what seems like Robin’s floundering and desperate long shot is revealed to be a sharply targeted hunt, because neither Portland nor the foodie scene are foreign to him: in a former life, it turns out, he was one of the city’s major and revered chefs, before heading for the woods fifteen years ago. With Amir’s help, Robin—so cut off from his former milieu that some of his former cohorts had assumed he’d died—makes his way through the city’s high-end dining scene in search of the thieves.

The quest, however, is tinged with absurdities that function like onscreen emojis, there to proclaim what Sarnoski intends to say and nothing more. One emblematic moment, in which Robin trumpets his return, involves his absorbing of atrocious punishment in a secretive underground fight club reserved for the exploitation of the city’s restaurant workers. It’s hardly a spoiler to say that Robin, already banged up by the pig thieves, spends the rest of the film scabbed and bruised and broken and smeared with his own blood, a giant fly in the overchilled vichyssoise of the inhumanly, pretentiously pristine gastronomical showcases that are the way stations of his investigation. Robin’s deep knowledge of Portland history—displaying his sense of tradition underneath the frippery—gradually but ineluctably leads to the movie’s meatball scene, the one that delivers its dose of populist demagogy in a single bite.

That scene takes place in the jewel box of Portland restaurants, a place where a reservation is a precious commodity that requires the formidable pulling of strings. At a meal of a comedically exaggerated chichi-ness, featuring turd-like lumps of emulsified scallops, “on a bed of foraged huckleberry foam,” under a dome of smoke, the stained and snaggle-toothed and blood-crusted Robin confronts the celebrated chef (David Knell), the toast of Portland, and calmly, patiently, surgically insults his cooking, his restaurant, his clientele, his fame, and—underlying it all—his commercial sellout of his erstwhile hearty and populist-cuisine dreams in favor of the frivolous acclaim of people (rich customers and pompous critics) for whom Robin has no respect and no regard. It’s as if grief has burned all worldly aspirations out of Robin, has wrenched the scales from his eyes and revealed the awful truth of the restaurant world and of the world at large. Alone in his cabin, a silent prophet of unvarnished and earthy sincerity—he’s an avatar of honest food , and there’s no deceit in the truffle —the theft of his pig has forced him back into the world and turned him into a vocal prophet whose quiet jeremiad is the linchpin of the movie and the moment in which Sarnoski tips his own hand into overt, banal, and self-justifying message-mongering.

What about the artistry, the aesthetic imagination, the full spectrum of cinematic drama that’s missing from “Pig”? It’s a movie that tells its story with TV-commercial images of a blatantly mood-conditioning simplification, with a skipping-about drama that incarnates its key plot points without seeming to know how or whether its characters exist in between them. This plain and bland realism rests heavily, like a manhole cover, on Robin, keeping down the entire range of experience and knowledge that he bears, his memories and his agonies and his sloughed-off aspirations, which are dosed out as big reveals solely as they serve to connect the dots of the story. Which is to say that “Pig” is not a particularly bad movie in its style, its form, its tone, its conception. It’s merely a painfully ordinary one, an algorithmic movie like many others, catering to the expectations of the moderately mainstream marketplace—not a fast-food movie but ostensibly hearty fare of the kind that Robin upholds as a worthy aspiration, a pleaser of an only lightly filtered and self-selecting crowd. What’s more, the chichi chef is revealed to have been an inadequate assistant, an ostensible master building his fraudulent glory on the hollow foundation of a lack of craft, of deficient professionalism. (That’s how the mediocre mainstream has ever damned the boldly original.) Whatever kinds of creative flourishes or audaciously original concepts go into making an exceptional movie (like an exceptional restaurant) are, here, relegated to the realm of the insincere, the arch, the unredeemably artificial and artsy—and of the pretentious, false viewers and critics who seek them out and pretend to enjoy them.

What’s left, however, is Cage’s trudging, punished performance. Competence is hardly the point; more or less any of the talented actors of Hollywood acclaim could bring allure and emotion to the role of Robin. But there’s one particular and peculiar aspect of the role that Cage seems to own and that he endows with the depth and burden of his own character and experience: martyrdom. Perhaps only Willem Dafoe, nearly of Cage’s generation, bears the same sense of self-torment, though Dafoe also glows with a non-militaristic martial hardness that converts affliction to energy. For Cage, the pain is the point: he conveys the sense of drinking deep of agony, as if deserving it, and Sarnoski takes full advantage of that artistic persona. The character that Cage portrays is incoherent, illustrative, and ludicrous, and yet his portrayal makes the movie. Cage turns its unreflective dramatic form and unchallenging narrative conventions into a kind of living nightmare, which bypasses the movie’s mediocre ideas and trivial plot and raises it—if only a few fleeting moments at a time—into the realm of the extraordinary. On the other hand, a director who understands such cinematic martyrdom profoundly—Paul Schrader—cast both Cage and Dafoe in the wild crime drama “ Dog Eat Dog ,” from 2016, which offers Cage a spectacular climactic scene of tragicomic martyrdom and terrifying fury. Stream it instead.

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Review: The Nicolas Cage drama ‘Pig’ is an unusually beautiful meditation on loss

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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials .

A man who was once an in-demand specialist — living a life marred by moments of eruptive rage — is roused out of retirement when an animal he loves is taken from him by shady criminals. Driven to revenge, he returns to his old stamping grounds, where he reacquaints himself with the arcane rules and the strict hierarchy of his past.

Sound a little like “John Wick”? Or “Taken” ? Or some other pulpy action picture about a rugged antihero getting reluctantly dragged back into a bloody fray?

Well, that’s not quite the way things go with “Pig,” a low-boil indie drama that features the game-for-anything genre-movie star Nicolas Cage in the lead, yet in no way could be described as a “thriller.” Though its plot follows the same rough outline of a “John Wick”-style shoot-em-up, “Pig” is actually a quiet and often melancholy meditation on loss, anchored by a character who wishes he could shake free of the person he used to be.

The first feature from the writer-director Michael Sarnoski (from a story co-written with Vanessa Block), “Pig” is divided into three parts, each given a title that reads like an haute cuisine menu item: “Rustic Mushroom Tart,” “Deconstructed Scallops,” etc. Part one introduces Robin Feld (Cage), a talented chef who lives way off the grid, deep in an Oregon forest with only his beloved truffle pig for company — plus some old cassette tapes made by a woman he loved.

When burglars beat him up and steal the pig, Rob calls on Amir ( Alex Wolff ), a rich Portland hipster who’s been bartering for Rob’s truffles to sell to upscale eateries. What Amir doesn’t know is that Rob is already well-acquainted with the intricacies of Portland’s foodie world: from the boutique suppliers to the ruthless bistro owners to the underground fight clubs where all the competitors are restaurant workers.

The phrase “underground fight clubs” should give some indication that “Pig” can be a bit — well, bizarre. There are surprising moments sprinkled throughout the film, including revelations about Rob and the folks he meets that are kept just vague enough to spark the viewer’s imagination, suggesting some painful secrets and hidden connections. And while the situation and the setting may be somewhat over the top, the characters’ reactions are always grounded in reality.

Sarnoski doesn’t answer every question the audience might have. (Boldly, he keeps the specifics of what happened to Rob’s old flame shrouded in mystery.) Instead, “Pig” focuses on fleshing out this stiflingly insular Portland community, filled with people who’ve turned the business of selling food into a blood sport. As Rob shuffles between various hotspots — getting somehow more caked with grime and gore with each passing hour — it’s easy to understand why he so desperately wanted to detach in the first place.

Inevitably, Rob runs into his shadow-self: a stern restaurant product-broker named Darius, played with a chilling steeliness by Adam Arkin . If anyone would know who in the Portland area had recently seized a truffle pig, it would be Darius, a man for whom nearly every aspect of existence is transactional. But whether he’d be willing to share that kind of valuable information is another matter.

Despite a few scenes here and there of Rob snarling, “I want my pig back!” this movie is not the kind of offbeat goof Cage has become infamous for lately. “Pig” is a rich character study, marked by several riveting Cage monologues, as Rob ruminates on the tricky taste of persimmons, or as he warns the Portland status-seekers that the things they think matter will be wiped away when catastrophe comes.

Rob is referring to environmental disasters, but he could just as easily be talking about losing a person — or a pig — that means more than any four-star food-blogger review. What makes this strange little movie so moving and even beautiful is that it takes Rob’s pig-saving mission as seriously as it takes his conviction that society as we know it is hopelessly rotten.

And yet he remains a tragic figure in a way, this pig-loving husk of a man. Rob wants to leave behind everything that’s gone sour in his life. But the flavors and aromas are all around him, lingering on his palate.

'Pig'

Rated: R, for language and some violence. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes Playing: Starts July 16 in general release

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PIG: A Profound, Pleasant Surprise

Toronto international film festival 2024: shook, toronto international film festival 2024: the luckiest man in america & eden, skeleton crew trailer 1, y2k trailer 1, look into my eyes: the healing power of connection, melbourne international film festival 2024: kneecap, babes, teaches of peaches, sasquatch sunset & wake up, red rooms: half sick of shadows online, i’ll be right there: if parenthood were a modern indie, the monkey: trailer 1, omni loop: trailer 1, alien: romulus: a love letter to the alien franchise, with mixed results, woman of the hour trailer 1.

When you read the logline of Pig , you would think NEON has acquired US distribution rights for the next Mandy or indie John Wick . Nicolas Cage plays a truffle hunter, his foraging pig gets kidnapped, and now he must return to his past in Portland on a desperate search. Sounds like crazy fun where Cage gets to let loose, right?

To my surprise, Pig never takes that route. Writer and director Michael Sarnoski ensures us from start to finish that his film will be restrained, beautiful, but full of anger and heartbreak underneath.

Beautiful Mood, Revealing Storytelling

In a similar vein to films like Leave No Trace and First Cow , Pig is quick to establish its aesthetic and tone within the first few minutes. We are greeted to sprawling wide shots of forests, with Rob ( Cage ) and his truffle pig quietly going about their day. The sounds of leaves being crunched when being walked over, of digging, and of birds chirping engulf us like an ASMR tape. It’s a lonely lifestyle, but it brings Rob peace.

Once the pig is taken, and Rob returns to the city, to the world of other people, the story begins to expand in extremely compelling ways. Everyone in the town seems to know him. He has a reputation – furthermore, a sense of history – around the place. It brought to mind the same kind of storytelling power found in films like Manchester by the Sea . It’s a screenplay that respects the audience for paying attention to every line of dialogue, since dialogue is used at its most minimal.

Careful, Delicate Direction

Accompanying Cage are equally restrained performances from Alex Wolff and Adam Arkin , a father-son pair who reside in the gastronomy world that Rob has clearly chosen to leave. From a scene in a fancy restaurant to a scene in a home office, every dialogue scene with Cage is performed and directed like a quiet showdown, where characters who have never met pit their histories, judgments, and reserved emotions against each other.

Just like a chef is delicate with their ingredients, Sarnoski is very delicate here with his writing and direction. At times, he brings about a surreal psychological effect where we are almost living inside Rob’s head. The cinematography, lighting, and choice of editing all contribute to a sense of tension, making us think someone is about to snap and go off the rails. At other times, Sarnoski would choose a wide shot and just let the camera sit, as we watch Rob quietly talk to a baker – it’s certainly one of the most intimate but devastating moments in the entire film.

There’s a Deeper, More Profound Story at Work

Through these moments of dialogue and occasional scenes of cooking and eating, you would forget, in the best way, that the plot of this film was supposed to be about a man trying to look for his stolen pig. As Pig progresses to its climax and ending, it becomes clear that Sarnoski had a lot more on his mind than just plot. On the surface, yes, the film flirts with commentary on the fakeness of the restaurant industry. However, that isn’t the thing that will stay with you when the film is over.

Pig , at its core, is a story about grief, how that affects a man’s way of living, and furthermore, how that affects strangers who live in a world he used to be a part of. It’s a surprisingly profound piece of work from Sarnoski , who challenges us to be still, to be present with Rob, and to try to understand just how he is where he is. With excellent performances, gentle direction, and an incredibly moving musical score by Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein , Pig was a big surprise.

It was the exact opposite of what I thought the film was going to be, and it ended up being a film I never knew I needed until now.

Did you see Pig ? What did you think of the film? Share below!

Pig will be released in theaters on July 16, 2021.

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Where to Watch

Watch Pig with a subscription on Hulu, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Like the animal itself, Pig defies the hogwash of expectations with a beautiful odyssey of loss and love anchored by Nicolas Cage's affectingly raw performance.

Slow and strange but well-written and acted, Pig has some profound messages about life for viewers willing to settle in for the ride.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Michael Sarnoski

Nicolas Cage

Nina Belforte

Cassandra Violet

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Related movie news.

‘Pig’ Film Review: Nicolas Cage Cooks Up One of His Finest Performances in Gourmet Vengeance Tale

Michael Sarnoski’s tale of a reclusive ex-chef out to retrieve his porcine pal mixes flavors you wouldn’t think would pair well, but they do

Two-thirds of the way into “Pig,” the offbeat feature debut from director Michael Sarnoski, Nicolas Cage sits at a prestigious restaurant in Portland, bloodied and in rags. It’s the kind of eatery that earns awards and praise, an establishment that prides itself in its outrageously overpriced micro-creations and deconstructions only a few a can afford, and even fewer can pronounce, but whose status make patrons near and far salivate for a reservation.

Playing Robin Feld, a venerated chef that quit the culinary business 15 years ago to live in the forest, Cage harshly judges such food as nothing more than pretentious, nourishing neither soul nor senses but feeding into a vicious cycle of false appearances. With contained authority, his imputation forces the man behind the dish to reconsider his path.

That scene serves as the main dish of a three-course cinematic meal that’s as unexpected as it’s a strangely poignant. “Pig” is a quest with an aftertaste that’s indescribable but pleasant. Not all the ingredients make sense together, but the product of their intermingling inside the filmmaker’s narrative pot render a special concoction. The recipe feels as if the documentary “The Truffle Hunters” was mixed with a pinch of “Fight Club” and just a dash of the hunger for vengeance in the Cage-starring gory thriller “Mandy.”

As a character, hermit Robin leans into Cage’s strength for stoicism. Silent other than when speaking to his precious porcine companion, a pig trained to find truffles in the Pacific Northwest greenery, this is a man who has sworn off all the comforts and hypocrisies of communal living. His only bridge to the outside world is young truffle dealer Amir (Alex Wolff), a character that initially feels disposable but soon surfaces as the film’s emotional anchor.

One random night, Rob’s antisocial lifestyle is upended when his beloved hog is stolen through violence. Furious, he coerces Amir to take him to the city to dig up answers. Back in the underbelly of Oregon’s restaurant industry, populated with clandestine dealings and vicious kingpins, the formerly renowned cook puts his own flesh on the line in exchange for clues. Sarnoski pushes the boundaries of realism ever so slightly for us to comprehend this is a realm of heightened viscerality where no one bats an eye at Rob’s pummeled face.

Cage is measured, perhaps even a bit comfortable in a role that knows how to utilize him, but for that, not any less magnetic to the eye. “Pig” also attests that when the Cage’s raw command of a scene is paired with the proper elements and a director that can deftly manipulate tone to the actor’s advantage, excellence arises. Wolff, best known for “ Hereditary ,” continues adding credibility to his developing career. In the body of insecure Amir, a kid in adult clothing driving a flashy car and desperate for his cold-hearted father’s approval, the young actor once again flaunts his knack for guarded vulnerability.

Some notes are less invigorating, like the facile trope of a dead spouse — it’s not only overused as the force to ignite a man’s desire for change or retaliation, but even within Cage’s own filmography, it’s a repeated motivation in the characters he chooses to play. But that doesn’t spoil the whole; the philosophical marinade Sarnoski drenches his screenplay with is plenty delicious. The writing is at its freshest when Rob pontificates about the insignificance of human plights against the brutality of Mother Nature or in the putative father-son relationship between him and Amir.

Auspiciously, the writer-director aims for a noticeable synergy between form and content. Just as the flavor profile of the plot begins to show its layers, so does the shape-shifting score by Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein. Early on the music rings of mystery and anticipation, and as “Pig” transitions into more humanistic drama, the melody follows suits turning tender, even soothing.  

Images of Rob reconnecting with people from his bygone life are captured in wide shots, amplifying the distance he’s deliberately created between those days and his current solitude. When he is cooking, however, cinematographer Patrick Scola (“Monsters and Men”) gets in there with him, almost like a cameraman in a Food Network competition, capturing the rosemary falling on a piece of chicken in slow motion. The intentionality of the overall craft dazzles, such as when an unhurried pan through Rob’s abode tells us so much about him without words.  

It’s mostly through what others utter about him that we get snippets of Rob’s past, yet Sarnoski is close-fisted with exposition. At first the obscurity of Rob’s glory days and the events that led to his isolation might frustrate, but ultimately the enigma elevates our immersion into this pessimistic man’s search for an animal that personifies his need for connection.

Cage leaves behind the blade and the guns so often employed in his movies and instead takes to the kitchen knife and the pan. Sarnoski makes a case for the value of an experience without defaulting to placing food porn in front of us. In fact, the dishes themselves are never center stage; what they evoke in us is what’s celebrated, a memory that comes through our taste buds and reaches the heart. To write of such vivid storytelling in a movie with this premise is truly a rewarding surprise.

A hefty order of longing served with a side of crime thrills, “Pig” is flavorful, fascinating and fancy, crafted by someone who knows how to create a dish that’s accessible yet undeniably gourmet in its complexity.

“Pig” opens in theaters Friday.

Pig (2021) Review

20 Aug 2021

Bearded, bloodied and making his few words count, an entirely different Nicolas Cage shows up for this fascinating indie, neither a font of meme-able rage moments nor the  Taken –like revenge thriller you may be expecting. The actor plays Rob, a woods-dwelling Oregonian whose prized truffle-hunting pig, Apple, is stolen in a scene of shocking home-invasion. We know little about what his life was like before that violent moment — not yet, at least — but the man who emerges from the tree line, more wild-eyed and haunted than the Cage in Alan Parker’s Birdy , is something we’ve never seen before. It’s like a Bigfoot sighting.

Pignapping could do that to a person, but it can’t be the whole story. What makes the rest of the film special isn’t Cage’s single-minded quest for Apple but the world he re-enters: a Portland haute-cuisine dining scene that’s almost comically cutthroat (it even has its own secret fight club). Rob’s only connection to human beings is a Camaro-driving truffle-dealer and wannabe hotshot named Amir ( Alex Wolff , tapping oceans of squirmy insecurity), who chauffeurs him around to various exclusive restaurants. The dynamic feels like the one in Rain Man between Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise: “He’s Buddhist,” says Amir apologetically to a gatekeeper.

You begin to notice how confidently Cage moves through kitchens. Everyone keeps Rob at a wary distance, and that intimidation is a clue to his past. Once in a while, Pig falls into middlebrow foodie-movie clichés (ah, the power of a simple salted baguette), but for the most part, debuting writer-director Michael Sarnoski seasons his tale of personal apocalypse with a light hand. He’s given his star — so often dwarfed by his own worst instincts — a pathway back to something real, and that’s a gift that won’t be fully appreciated for a while. The film’s earthy flavours linger. It’s the aroma of redemption.

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