Pig - genuinely moving in its examination of the impact of grief!

Introduction - This compelling film will take you by surprise - you might think it's going to be a violent Nicholas Cage revenge thriller - but it's not.
Name of film: Pig
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Year: 2021

Official Trailer

Review

Nicolas Cage is an Oscar winner - for his role in Leaving Las Vegas. But in recent years he has gained a reputation as an action man. Cage seems happy to have settled for films that require him to be more outrageous, manic and excessive each time - this has slowly ebbed away at his real reputation as a class actor and he has tipped himself into self parody. But in this slow burner, he might well be up for another Oscar.
In Sarnoski's debut feature, the story is simple enough. Cage plays Robin, grizzled and solitary, living in a wooden cabin in the Oregon outback with only a pig for company. He is a truffle hunter and he and his pig survive by selling them. One day his pig is stolen and Cage wants his pet back. This is the perfect set up for a violent and bloody revenge thriller and the pounding music sets it up for that too.
Cage, a massive physical presence and dressed in rags, is forced to go out of the wilderness and back to his middle class Portland city roots. So the story unfolds of why Cage is living as a virtual tramp and Pig turns into a sombre reflective piece about grief and loss - much quieter than you might first expect - the music switches to acoustic accordingly.
Sarnoski confounds our expectations by casting Cage in the leading role – it slowly becomes clear that this is not going to be a violent story. Instead, it’s a delicate mournful piece, an unusual journey that takes Cage, and us, into his former world as a gifted chef and shows how far removed he has become from any sense of normality and how the world has moved ahead without him. The tagline is "We don't get a lot of things to care about," and we find out what Robin cares about.
So Cage is restrained, deconstructing his trademark image - his voice is soft and his eyes are sad. It's a memorable piece of work showing Cage to be a careful and soulful actor at best. It's an assured debut by Sarnoski - beautifully photographed and the switches in tack are handled with absolute certainty.
Pig may ultimately be too quiet a film for the Hollywood mainstream and that means it may well be overlooked at the Oscars, but it is genuinely moving in its examination of the impact of grief.

My favorite scene - Cage cooks a meal for the man who stole his pig

Number of SUBs out of 10 - 7 out of 10

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Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.