by John Zenoni
When I first saw the trailer last year for Nicholas Cage's film, ‘Pig’, my mouth almost dropped because I thought, ‘Man, has his career hit an absolute low!’ I could not believe he had made a film centered around a pig. I think I even recall people snickering around me in the theater (the few who were there, due to COVID), when it played. I immediately assumed this was one of those revenge-style films, i.e. John Wick, and just could not deal with it. Well, I could not have been more wrong on both counts. Not only that, in the past year I started hearing all this noise start to stir about Cage’s performance and it being his best since his Oscar-winning performance in ‘Leaving Las Vegas.’ So, with that I decided to watch it last night and it is unlike anything you would have expected from the trailer.
The film opens with Cage, aka Robin, living in seclusion with his truffle-finding pig in the woods, only interacting with a young man, Amir (Alex Wolff), who brings him goods in exchange for the truffles, as Amir has a successful side business selling them to restaurants. The next thing we know, Robin’s home/shack is broken into one night and his pig stolen. At this point, yes, it does turn into a hunt about the pig but it's not a revenge, shoot-em-up style film. We learn that Robin lost his wife and all that he has left to remember her by are some tapes she made for him that he constantly listens to. Not only that, he was also one of, if not the, most recognized chefs in the region at one time and his name, in fact, still opens many doors, as evidenced in certain scenes in the film. We also encounter Amir’s father, Darius (Adam Atkin), who does play a bad guy but we learn he also is grieving for his own reasons as well. This comes to a climax during a scene when Cage’s character makes a dinner for Amir and his father.
This film has so many good moments and a lot of what you're watching makes you wonder how it plays out like it does but this goes to the credit of the director (his film debut, no less!) and the original story. It has a lot of meaning and heart and I'm so glad that I finally watched it.
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