Movie Review: 'Pig' Starring Nicolas Cage

Pig is a very simple movie about loving something more than you love yourself. While it can be hard to take Nicolas Cage seriously these days given his full transformation into a meme in human form Pig shows that there are still times when the actor emerges from the shadow of the icon. Pig is a great example of Nicolas Cage the actor emerging and showing the delicacy and talent that is so often forgotten behind the bugged intensity and meme-worthy posing.

Pig stars Nicolas Cage as Rob, a man living a simple life in the mountains, scouring for truffles with his beloved pig. Rob sustains his meager living by trading truffles for supplies with a young rich boy named Amir (Alex Wolff) who in turn sells the truffles at a premium price in nearby Portland, Oregon. Amir lives in the shadow of his restaurant supply magnate father, Darius (Adam Arkin), but the truffles he gets from Rob have given him a rare advantage over his overbearing dad.

Both Rob and Amir’s fates are altered when, in the middle of the night, a pair of tweakers burst into Rob’s cabin in the remote woods of Oregon and steal his beloved pig. With no other options, Rob calls on Amir to help him get his pig back. Together, Rob and Amir will enter a strange underworld in the Portland restaurant scene and Rob will suffer several torments on their way to discovering the fate of Rob’s best friend.

Pig is somehow even more simple than that premise I just described. Plot is not the point of Pig. Rather, the purpose of Pig is revealing the basic humanity and decency of loving something more than you love yourself. Pig might just be a meal ticket for the tweakers or the richie rich restaurateurs of Portland, but to Rob, Pig is a companion, a beloved friend. Pig is perhaps Rob’s only friend, to the point where Rob doesn’t even really need Pig to help him find truffles.

That’s the heart of Pig, how all of the hands through which Pig travels on its journey away from Rob, fail to understand that a Pig can be more than just a pig. On a metaphoric level, Pig reveals the emptiness of the search for more, more money, more power, more status. What everyone who partakes of stealing Pig fails to grasp is that their life cannot be enriched by more money or more status in their industry and then Rob comes along and underlines that point in remarkable and different ways.

Pig has one scene in particular that is one of the finest in Cage’s career. Attending a high end restaurant where the Chef may have knowledge of the whereabouts of Pig, Cage slowly unravels the poor Chef who has a history with Rob that is revealed in wonderful dialogue. Cage monologues brilliantly on the nature of the soul sick emptiness of chasing trends, critics, praise, and money. It’s a showy, actorly moment, but Cage makes this moment understated and poignant.

The slow burn bond between Cage and the brilliant young Alex Wolff is also at the heart of Pig. Wolff has been slowly becoming one of the most reliably watchable and engaging actors of his generation. His performance in Ari Aster’s Hereditary was a statement but his performance here may be a true signature on his rise in prominence. Amir is a young man on the edge of becoming a substantial person. He can take one path and chase a soulless, money grubbing existence or he can become a person of substance. We don’t get an answer about his future here but we sense he has a journey to take as the movie comes to a close.

Pig was co-written and directed by Michael Sarnosky in his first feature film behind the camera. Sarnosky shows a strong talent for allowing his actors room to carry the moment. Sarnosky’s style is never showy, rather, he matches Cage’s brilliantly understated performance with direction and pacing that perfectly suits Cage’s energy. It’s a near perfect marriage of direction and acting and it’s the key to the success of Pig.

Pig opens in limited theatrical release on July 16th, 2021.