pig 2021 movie review

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors.

Now streaming on:

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.

Now playing

Hundreds of Beavers

Borderlands

Brian tallerico.

Skywalkers: A Love Story

Glenn Kenny

Lady in the Lake

Kaiya shunyata, film credits.

Rated R for language and some violence.

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

• Michael Sarnoski
• Vanessa Block

Cinematographer

• Patrick Scola
• Brett W. Bachman
• Alexis Grapsas
• Philip Klein

Latest blog posts

Tina Mabry and Edward Kelsey Moore on the Joy and Uplift of The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

The Adams Family Gets Goopy in Hell Hole

A Look Back at MUBI FEST CHICAGO

2024 XL Film Festival & Summit – Highlights of its Sophomore Year

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.

• Michael Sarnoski
• Vanessa Block
• Nicolas Cage
• 1K User reviews
• 243 Critic reviews
• 82 Metascore
• 37 wins & 74 nominations

Top cast 35

• Audiobook Narrator

• (as Kevin-Michael Moore)

• Butcher Joe

• Chef Finway

• Nurse Linda
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Nicolas Cage on the Roles That Changed His Life

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia In an after film Q&A, director Michael Sarnoski revealed the pig only had three days of training and bit Nicolas Cage multiple times. After a particularly nasty bite, Cage joked: "I've been set on fire, I've been in flipped cars but it'll be sepsis from a pig bite that kills me."
• Goofs When the characters are talking about Mt. Hood and looking at it in the distance, the mountain is shown as being beyond the west hills of Portland. In reality, Mt. Hood is east of Portland. The mountain in the film is CGI.

Rob : We don't get a lot of things to really care about.

• Crazy credits After the song that Lori has recorded for Rob ends, one can hear nature sounds, someone digging for truffles, and a pig.
• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Pig - Josee, the Tiger and the Fish (2021)
• Soundtracks Danse Macabre Written by Camille Saint-Saëns , Public Domain Arranged by Ossi Bashiri Courtesy of Extreme Music

User reviews 1K

• Nov 29, 2021
• How long is Pig? Powered by Alexa
• July 16, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Official Pig
• Official site
• 208 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon, USA (Lunch scene at Eurydice. In real life this location was, at the time, a portion of the Saucebox restaurant.)
• Altitude Film
• BlockBox Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Jul 18, 2021

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 32 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

‘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

• ‘Lumina’ Review: A Soap Opera That Thinks It’s a Space Opera 1 month ago
• ‘All Happy Families’ Review: Not All Indie Family Dramedies Are Alike 2 months ago
• ‘Brats’ Review: Hulu’s Brat Pack Doc Doubles as a Group Therapy Session 2 months ago

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.

Related Stories

High-Resolution 8K Has Its Places, but TV Might Not Be One of Them

Molly Kearney Leaving 'Saturday Night Live': 'It Was Such a Dream Come True'

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.

Popular on Variety

“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.

More from Variety

Carol Burnett on Stealing ‘Palm Royale’ Scenes in Her Sleep and the Time That Tim Conway Made Harvey Korman Wet His Pants

Reality TV Survived the ’07 Writers Strike. Why Is It Hurting in 2024?

Christopher Lloyd Nixed Sitcoms Nearly Five Decades Ago — Then ‘Taxi’ Happened

How ‘Loki’ VFX Supervisor Christopher Townsend Created ‘Time Slipping’ for Season 2  

‘Borderlands’ Blunder Proves Hollywood Hasn’t Mastered Adapting Video Games to Film

Sofía Vergara Wants to Revisit ‘Modern Family’ and Suggests Doing a ‘TV Movie’; She Jokes to Ed O’Neill: ‘Don’t Die’ Before

More from our brands, illuminati hotties deliver the indie-pop record of the (late) summer with ‘power’.

Inside the Peaceful Off-Season Malibu Retreat of NFL Player Ronnie Stanley

Sideline iPad Video Replays Alter View in NCAA This Season

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

The Acolyte Star ‘Quite Surprised’ by Cancellation, Remains Hopeful for Future Seasons: ‘You Never Know’

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

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

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

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.

Related Stories

Jack black, paul rudd circling reimagining of horror movie 'anaconda', nicolas cage's 'longlegs' horror pic crosses $100m in global box office.

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

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Tcm screening ‘the most significant political films of all time’ (exclusive), himesh patel talks chemistry with joseph gordon-levitt, reuniting with lily james in ‘greedy people’, sony sets u.s. theatrical release for anime feature ‘overlord: the sacred kingdom’, ‘the killer’ review: john woo’s remake offers omar sy and new twists, but lacks the poetry of his original, ‘better off dead’: thr’s 1985 review, john cena on why ‘trainwreck’ sex scene with amy schumer was “real embarrassing”.

• Tickets & Showtimes
• Trending on RT

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. 

On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

Related News

Andrew Garfield Movies and Series Ranked by Tomatometer

30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming

Edgar Wright Surprises Shaun of the Dead Superfans

2024-25 Fall TV First Look: Find Out What’s On Each Night

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows 2024

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

August 22, 2024

The Crow Movies In Order

Where to Watch the Emmy-Nominated Shows of 2024

100 Best Anime Movies of All Time

Top Headlines

• The Crow Movies In Order –
• 100 Best Anime Movies of All Time –
• All Quentin Tarantino Movies Ranked –
• Andrew Garfield Movies and Series Ranked by Tomatometer –
• 30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming –
• 25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming –

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• Certified Fresh Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 77% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
• 97% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling
• 86% Between the Temples Link to Between the Temples

New TV Tonight

• 93% Chimp Crazy: Season 1
• 100% Pachinko: Season 2
• -- That '90s Show: Season 3
• -- OceanXplorers: Season 1
• -- Classified: Season 1
• -- Reasonable Doubt: Season 2
• -- The Anonymous: Season 1
• -- Face to Face With Scott Peterson: Season 1
• -- Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• 78% Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• 86% Average Joe: Season 1
• 96% Industry: Season 3
• 55% The Umbrella Academy: Season 4
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1 Link to Bad Monkey: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

The Crow Movies In Order

100 Best Anime Movies of All Time

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

2024-25 Fall TV First Look: Find Out What’s On Each Night

Where to Watch the Emmy-Nominated Shows of 2024

• Trending on RT
• Verified Hot Movies
• Re-Release Calendar
• Popular TV Shows
• Renewed and Cancelled TV

Pig Reviews

The beauty in Pig is that memory can be cruel, freeing, and redemptive all at once.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2024

Cage [gives] his best, most fully realized performance in decades.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

I missed seeing Pig on its original release, and that was my mistake. Do not make the same one. This is vital, unmissable cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Sep 5, 2023

Cage elevates Sarnoski’s visuals. The actor is a vortex of emotions that quietly burn beneath a lonely exterior.

Full Review | Jul 27, 2023

PIG is ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF 2021. It’s not Mandy, it’s not A John Wick Clone, it’s a somber, subdue, & profound film on the meaning in the meaningless of things to others & ourselves.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Pig may not be for everyone, but it is still worth the watch. It is a gentle, slow-burn movie, that while not perfect and a bit messy in some places, is undeniably a great piece of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Pig goes on a mission to redefine traditional masculine roles. There’s an unspoken vulnerability in it that employs unexpected methods and unmanly emotions to highlight something that’s inherently rooted in all men: tenderness.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2023

This is perhaps the most empathetic movie of the year, featuring characters with motivations that are clear and easy to understand while still holding plenty of subtle depth.

Full Review | May 1, 2023

Pig will haunt you and allow you to contemplate its rich themes if you allow yourself to open up to its cerebral style. In return for opening yourself up, Pig will indeed satisfyingly cleanse your cinephile palette.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 31, 2023

Debutante Sarnoski's austere and modest narrative drive is essential to Cage's luminous performance... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 20, 2022

A rarity. One waits for a proverbial wink to let us know that we're experiencing a strange joke of a film. But the wink never arrives, and once we realize that this is a serious movie, we reach unthinkable dramatic levels. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 16, 2022

This is Cage’s best performance in years... Pig takes the humblest ingredients and delivers a Michelin-star cinematic feast.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 12, 2022

Pig is a solemn yet subtly stirring character study that expertly subverts expectations, elevated by Nicolas Cage ’s best performance in nearly two decades.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2022

Sarnoski fully earns our empathy despite not fully satisfying our curiosity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Sarnoski skews from the customary revenge thriller and plays with the crazed image Cage has constructed in the past decade and a half to bring us something completely unexpected. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 15, 2022

Pig is proof that [Cage] is capable of elevating a film that many will come to watch expecting a good time and will be left with tears in their eyes. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 15, 2022

... With a cold mise en scene and a contemplative, sedated rhythm, Pig proves that there isn't a colder dish than a broken, lost soul. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2022

What gives this strange film most of its beauty, emotional brutality, and poignant power is Cage, whose work exudes mystery, and tenderness, and suppressed rage. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2022

It gives the impression that a good part of the film's findings are more found than really sought after, more chance than fair and accurate reflection. [Full review in Spanish]

[Nicolas Cage] brings a grace to his scenes in the kitchen, showing us a man whose respect for the raw materials of his dishes borders on spiritual and whose ease with the tools of the trade reveals a mastery born of experience.

Full Review | Jul 5, 2022

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Fitness & Wellbeing
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance Deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Climate 100
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Wine Offers
• Betting Sites

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

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.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

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.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

Advertisement

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘Pig’ Review: Come Back, Trotter

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

• Share full article

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.

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

• Copy Link URL Copied!

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

More to Read

A novel co-written by Keanu Reeves is actually great (and just waiting to be adapted into his next flick)

July 17, 2024

A piglet on the lam. An escaped mini pig leads police in California city on a frenzied pursuit

June 17, 2024

Review: In ‘Wildcat,’ director Ethan Hawke — and daughter Maya — bring a literary life to screen

May 3, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Review: Weighed down by too much muck and not enough myth, a slackly remade ‘The Crow’ flops

Robert Downey Jr. reveals how Kevin Feige persuaded him to return as Doctor Doom

Aug. 22, 2024

Review: ‘Blink Twice’ plunges us into a potent fantasy island with a dark side that’s less clear

Hollywood Inc.

Bronfman ups bid for control of Paramount to $6 billion

Aug. 21, 2024

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.

Related Articles

Movies | 04 06 2024

Movies | 22 04 2022

Movies | 23 12 2021

'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

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

See Pig and Tremble Before Your Own Mortality

More Zen fable than genre picture, Michael Sarnoski’s Pig delights in defying expectations. After its opening 20 or so minutes, you could easily mistake it for a revenge movie, or at least some kind of hillbilly-noir quest narrative. But those expecting a sillier variation on John Wick or Taken or even previous idiosyncratic Nicolas Cage outings like Mandy may be in for some disappointment. Pig (now in theaters via Neon Releasing) is in no way that kind of movie. As it proceeds, it expands its vision and compassion, even as it de-escalates the tension. It’s not about the thing it’s about, except that it ultimately is totally about the thing it’s about.

Okay, let me explain what I mean. Nicolas Cage plays a grizzled, mournful hermit named Rob who lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and spends his days hunting truffles with his pig, Apple, and then trading them to big-city buyer Amir (Alex Wolff). One night, a couple of intruders beat Rob up and steal Apple. Truffles are big business in the growing high-end Portland restaurant scene, and a well-trained truffle pig is obviously very valuable. The distraught, vengeful Rob calls up Amir, and the two head into the city on a journey that takes them to posh restaurants and underground fight clubs in their efforts to locate Apple.

That sounds like a goofy idea for a story, but as played out onscreen, it’s even goofier. Leaving aside the slightly surreal notion that all this hullaballoo is happening over a truffle pig, Sarnoski drops a number of visual hints as to the metaphorical nature of this quest. For starters, the grizzled, grimy Rob is increasingly wounded and covered in blood as the evening proceeds. He doesn’t even wash the blood off his face after he’s pummeled in a late-night beatdown, and he’s already covered in scars from the initial, quite violent theft of his pig. And Cage — still one of our bravest actors — plays Rob with a ghostly rigidity that regularly slips from coiled aggression to stone-faced deadpan. He feels true, but he doesn’t feel real.

As the duo travel through the city, Amir discovers that Rob’s full name — Robin Feld — can still open lots of doors. He was, 15 years earlier, Portland’s most respected, beloved chef. We also find out — gradually, in dribs and drabs — what made Robin turn away from his profession. But Amir also has a backstory, one that increasingly connects with Robin’s. Back when he was a kid, his parents had a memorable dinner at Robin’s restaurant, and he recalls that it was the only time they didn’t come back from their date night fighting. The power of food to heal, to release emotions long suppressed, runs throughout Pig . But that has little to do with food and more to do with connection, a sense of being present and alive that food in its purest form represents.

Most movies that try to explore characters’ backstories would go out of their way to give us heavy details about the past — either via flashbacks or long, anguished dialogue scenes. Pig treads lightly, letting us absorb information through tossed-off lines and moments of silence. Sarnoski is often content to focus his camera on a small detail or glance, or to cut away right in the middle of a dramatic moment, as if trying to represent cinematically the mindfulness that Robin seeks, and that maybe he lost with the theft of his pig.

Pig ’s funniest, most powerful moment comes when Robin and Amir visit the city’s hottest restaurant, a kind of super-fancy locavore haute-cuisine outlet where the ornate, minuscule dishes come with a poetic lecture about the Earth that takes longer than it would to eat the actual food. Calling the chef (David Knell), a former employee of his, to the table, Robin tells him that everything around them is meaningless: “The critics aren’t real, the customers aren’t real, because this isn’t real. You aren’t real. Why do you care about these people? … They don’t even know you, because you haven’t shown them. Every day you wake up and there’ll be less of you.” Cage’s haunted delivery, contrasting powerfully with Knell’s anxious, terrified giggling, gives the scene a metaphysical kick. His speech starts off feeling like a stinging humiliation of a stuck-up foodie chef, until we gradually realize that Robin is talking about himself. “We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” he finally sighs. “Derek, who has my pig?”

That pig is the only thing that matters to Robin, because it’s the only thing he’s got left that he cares about, and once the pig is gone, he too may be gone. Each step that brings Robin and Amir closer to Apple seems to bring them closer to their own past. These scenes also play out like individual stations in a series of abasement rituals, in which Robin is beaten both physically and spiritually — as if, after years of hiding in the woods, he’s finally coming face-to-face with his own mortality and meaninglessness, his own impermanence. During an earlier monologue, Robin talks about the great earthquake that will one day level the Pacific Northwest , and at times his words sound not like a prophecy or a warning, but an oblique recollection of the emotional earthquake that devastated him. There’s one more fold to that, however — something more cosmic that reflects on the nature of life itself. Every day we wake up, there’s less of us, too. We all lose the things we care about, until we also are finally gone.

More Movie Reviews

• They Finally Made The Crow for Goth Incompetents
• The Mesmerizing Close Your Eyes Asks What Really Makes a Life
• Megalopolis Is a Work of Absolute Madness
• movie review
• nicolas cage
• michael sarnoski
• food movies

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 150: August 23, 2024
• The DNC’s Surprise Guest Was Real to Us
• Evil Series-Finale Recap: Last Rites
• What Happened With Kendall and Nicole From Love Island USA ?
• Clairo Shade Is Everywhere
• Post Malone’s Country Album Has Too Much Baggage

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Help Kids Build Character Strengths with Quality Media

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 4 Reviews
• Kids Say 1 Review

Common Sense Media Review

Powerful, violent revenge thriller about kidnapped pig.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Pig is a drama-thriller about a former chef named Robin Feld (Nicolas Cage) who's living as a truffle hunter deep in the woods and will stop at nothing to find his kidnapped pig and get her back. Robin is beaten up several times, and he's whacked in the head with something that makes…

Why Age 15+?

Unseen invaders break down a door and hit a man, knocking him to floor; characte

Very strong language, with uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole."

Secondary characters appear to be stoned/high. Reference to "junkies." Character

Brief sex-related dialogue.

Any Positive Content?

Alongside a lot of consequence-free violent/reckless behavior are a few interest

As fascinating as Robin Feld is and as pure as his intentions are, he's still a

Violence & Scariness

Unseen invaders break down a door and hit a man, knocking him to floor; character clobbered in face with something metallic-sounding. Pool of blood on floor. Bloody head wound. Swollen, bloody face. Knife. Underground fight club sequence; character held while another beats him up (repeated punching). Sounds of pig in distress, frantic squealing. Death and suicide discussed. Scene of chopping game hens.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Secondary characters appear to be stoned/high. Reference to "junkies." Character smokes pot. Wine with dinner. Adult drinks whiskey socially.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Alongside a lot of consequence-free violent/reckless behavior are a few interesting sequences with mini-messages about topics like cutting through the glitz and discovering what really matters. Movie's overall arc is about love rather than revenge, and it prizes decency and honesty over cutthroat business practices.

Positive Role Models

As fascinating as Robin Feld is and as pure as his intentions are, he's still a magnet for violence and rarely faces any consequences. Moreover, his attempt at living a "pure" life in the woods by himself could also be seen as running away from his grief.

Parents need to know that Pig is a drama-thriller about a former chef named Robin Feld ( Nicolas Cage ) who's living as a truffle hunter deep in the woods and will stop at nothing to find his kidnapped pig and get her back. Robin is beaten up several times, and he's whacked in the head with something that makes a metallic sound. His face is swollen and bloody throughout. A knife is shown, death and suicide are discussed, and the pig is in distress, with frantic squealing noises heard. Language is also strong throughout, with uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," and "a--hole." There's also brief sex-related dialogue. Adult characters drink wine and whiskey in social settings, and two minor characters are referred to as "junkies"; one is seen smoking pot. The movie is surprisingly perceptive and touching and boasts an amazing performance by Cage. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Not a revenge film, but a film about grief

What's the story.

In PIG, former chef Robin Feld ( Nicolas Cage ) lives in a remote cabin in the woods, spending his days hunting truffles with his beloved pig and baking rustic mushroom tarts. Every so often, Amir ( Alex Wolff ) arrives from Portland to buy or trade for truffles. One night, intruders break in, bash Robin over the head, and make off with his pig. Robin gets to town and phones Amir, who picks him up and starts to take him on the trail to retrieve his animal. Along the way, secrets about Robin's earlier life come out, and Robin's presence causes others to question their own choices. What fate awaits Robin at the end of the search?

Is It Any Good?

What might have been a typical, one-note revenge movie actually becomes a bleakly atmospheric, oddly touching, surprisingly perceptive drama, with a grizzled, powerhouse performance by Cage. The feature directing debut of Michael Sarnoski, Pig begins deceptively, setting up what we expect will be a familiar story: Robin is shown hunting truffles, cooking and baking, and dealing with the flashy, acerbic Amir. It seems to have much in common with two other very good Cage movies, Joe and Mandy . At first it doesn't make sense that Amir would help Robin, but the more details come out, the more we realize how much Amir respects him, and it all comes together. Wolff gives a fine performance too.

The theft of the pig (who doesn't have a name and is only referred to as "my pig") is a genuinely shocking moment, and then the movie deepens in unexpected ways. It takes place largely within an elite, high-class restaurant industry, and even the smallest characters emerge in potent ways. Robin acts almost as a mirror image to others, revealing their true selves, uncovering whether a person is shallow or crooked. In a way, Pig is really about cutting through the glitz and discovering what really matters. The simple, surprising, and powerful denouement is one of Cage's great movie moments.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Pig 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important ?

Is this a revenge story? What's the appeal of revenge? What are the drawbacks? Does it really solve anything?

Why does Robin live in the woods? Is he escaping, or is he simplifying his life? Both?

How are alcohol and drugs portrayed? Are they glamorized? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 16, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : August 3, 2021
• Cast : Nicolas Cage , Alex Wolff , Adam Arkin
• Director : Michael Sarnoski
• Studio : Neon
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Horses and Farm Animals
• Run time : 92 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and some violence
• Last updated : October 14, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Leave No Trace

The Truffle Hunters

Thriller movies, drama movies that tug at the heartstrings, related topics.

• Horses and Farm Animals

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Pig REVIEW – Moving & Delightful

Michael Sarnoski's Pig is one of the best movies of the year.

Upon reading the premise of Pig, where Nicolas Cage’s Rob goes in search of his foraging pig after she goes missing, as well as the intense image of Cage on the poster, you might think, just as I did, that this is basically a John Wick movie, but with a pig instead of a dog. Well, you would be wrong, because Pig isn’t about violence and revenge (though there are some violent bits in between), it’s about love, grief and the meaning of life. The film is structured like a 3-course meal, and as you consume each part, the hope is that it brings you a tad closer to finding some measure of peace within yourself.

Rob has chosen to isolate himself in the Oregonian wilderness, where he makes a living through his foraging pig especially skilled in sniffing out the biggest truffles there are. He does business with Alex Wolff’s Amir, and their relationship is merely transactional, with Amir stopping by only to pick up the truffles, his concern mainly with the bottom line, and Rob makes it clear that he doesn’t care for small talk.

This all changes when Rob’s pig is taken, and he needs Amir’s help to get back to the city, where he navigates his way through the seedy underbelly of the exotic foods world. Along the way, Amir discovers who Rob used to be before he chose to exile himself from everything, and also stumbles onto the reason why Rob decided to estrange himself. What I love about the film is that Rob’s grief is never spelled out for us, but you feel it so acutely in every interaction Rob has, be it speaking to a little boy about persimmons, or picking up some salted baguettes.

Others have always been critical of Cage’s acting, or specifically his over -acting, but I have never felt that to be the case. Those roles required camp and hyperbole (think Face/Off or Moonstruck), and you can clearly see the contrast in the more measured roles he takes on. He just commits a hundred percent, and over the years, I have come to truly appreciate his presence in indie films like Mandy and Color Out of Space, as well as his ability to stand out in ensemble films like Kick-Ass and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse . This film depends so much on Cage to sell us the reality of his character, which he does with aplomb.

Right up there with him is Wolff, whom I have loved ever since his performance in Hereditary . Amir plays up this sense of confidence and being a key figure in the exotic foods game, but this is all a façade, an act of bravado for his father Darius (Adam Arkin), to prove that he can swing it with the big boys, when in reality all he wants is to receive a measure of approval from his father. Also, the loss of Amir’s mother echoes between them, building an insurmountable barrier that may never be overcome.

The most astounding thing about Michael Sarnoski’s film (he also wrote the screenplay, along with Vanessa Block) is how much it spoke to me as a viewer. There is the capitalist way of things, where success is determined by money and reputation, something that Darius wants to maintain (at a selfish cost) and Amir wants to emulate. Rob is in contrast to all that, for he had success, but he wasn’t driven by the money, rather, it was the love for food and the desire to impart some measure of joy to the people he cooked for. He cared about what he did, and even though he walked away from all that, we still see snippets of it as he lives his life in the wilderness.

In life, we only get to truly love a few people, and have passion for a handful of things, yet we spend most of it trying to amass the adoration of many, working our way to a material success that doesn’t mean anything . The solution isn’t Rob’s choice of estrangement, nor does it lie in Darius’ way – the answer is somewhere in between, which is up to you to determine; your life, your agency. In the meantime, here’s a good film to get you thinking about life and your place in the state of things. Be warned though, it is the kind of film that will pull you in like gravity, causing you to weep as you sink into its depths. However, you leave with a cathartic glow, still uncertain of things, but with a daring to try.

Review screener provided.

READ NEXT: 10 Saddest Movies On Netflix You Should Watch

Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.

Gamezeen is a Zeen theme demo site. Zeen is a next generation WordPress theme. It’s powerful, beautifully designed and comes with everything you need to engage your visitors and increase conversions.

Latest Reviews

Judy blume forever review – the power of stories, a small light review – a tense new perspective on anne frank, indiana jones and the dial of destiny review – a fond farewell to an icon, videoverse (pc) review – what’s happening, forum.

• Alone in the Dark 2024
• Announcements
• Assassin's Creed Mirage
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
• Blu-Ray Reviews
• Book Reviews
• Cheats & Codes
• Crunchyroll
• Discworld Discussions
• Disney Plus
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
• Football Manager 2024
• Game Previews
• Game Reviews
• Games To Play Before You Die
• Gaming Tips & Guides
• Grand Theft Auto 6
• Indie Gaming
• Make the Case
• Memorable Moments
• Movie Reviews
• Movies To See Before You Die
• PlayStation 4
• PlayStation 5
• PlayStation Plus
• Prime Video
• Q&A Interviews
• Short Stories
• Video Game Release Dates
• Video Games
• Where To Watch
• Writing Tips
• Xbox Game Pass
• Xbox Series X | S

Subscribe Today

Screen Rant

Pig: why the reviews for nicolas cage's movie are so positive.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Pitt & Clooney's New Movie Had Its Theatrical Run Slashed By Apple, Now The Director Responds

Brendan fraser’s wwii movie adds oscar-nominated star to cast, alien: romulus box office bursts past major domestic milestone.

Nicolas Cage has appeared in a lot of movies with rocky critical receptions, but his latest release  Pig   has received largely positive reviews. Critics have praised Cage's performance as a former elite chef turned recluse, along with the efforts of first-time director Michael Sarnoski and the film's patient writing. For many,  Pig  is a reminder of why Cage is such a fascinating actor despite the unevenness of his work.

Pig  begins as a somewhat meditative account of a man's relationship with his pet pig, with Cage starring as the bearded and mysterious Rob. When the pig is stolen, Rob must team up with ambitious food supplier Amir (played by Alex Wolff) and return to the underworld of Portland's culinary scene. The plot has drawn comparisons to the  frequently imitated  John Wick , but  Pig 's focus is less on high-stakes action and more on Rob's character.

RELATED:  How Nic Cage's Villain Can Return For Face/Off 2 (Despite Being Dead)

This pacing and style are more similar to arthouse films than either action blockbusters or the B-movies that Cage often appears in. The movie avoids conventional narrative satisfaction and catharsis as it gradually reveals more about Rob's world. Critics appreciate  Pig 's   pacing and focus on characters.

Chicago Sun-Times  writes:

“Pig” is not a revenge film, nor is it the most compelling mystery in the world, though we care greatly about the fate of that poor creature, and we do eventually find out what happened to her. It’s a rustic, poetic, occasionally funny, sometimes heartbreaking and wonderfully strange and memorable character study of a man who is in such tremendous pain he had to retreat from the world.

Rolling Stone  also praises  Pig 's unusual and imaginative depiction of the culinary world:

Amir and Rob become an unhappy couple, with the former stepping in — not exactly willingly — to help the latter. Because at the end of the day this is a business, and a lost pig spells trouble for them both. And so  Pig  descends, somewhat subversively, into an unexpected underground that, aside from Cage, is the best thing about the movie.

Nicolas Cage's star performance has been one of the biggest focuses of positive reviews. His character in  Pig  is more sensitive and wounded than angry, in line with other recent surreal Cage vehicles like  Mandy   and the underrated Lovecraft adaptation  The Color Out of Space .

The AV Club   singles out Cage's performance for praise:

None of this would work without Cage’s commitment to the idea of Rob as both arrestingly iconic and resolutely human. Few of the things Rob does are wholly credible—least of all his refusal to accept any treatment for his many wounds, just letting the blood dry and cake on his face throughout, undisturbed—but his emotions are so raw and forceful that they fling your disbelief skyward until it winds up in orbit, well out of your way.

The Film Stage  agrees:

It is remarkably intense, understated work, utilizing his potential to physically intimidate within the confines of a character who is fragile and just wants his friend back. The way his performance expands throughout the runtime is remarkable—he allows himself to openly reminisce and grieve before the inevitable shutdown comes. There are moments throughout  Pig  that rank amongst the best scenes he’s ever had as an actor, further revealing how much of a groundbreaking talent he is.

Writer and director Michael Sarnoski also receives credit for his cinematography and attention to detail. Critics enjoy the way Sarnoski depicts everything from fight scenes to meals with careful attention, to detail and draws out strong performances from both Cage and the less well-known supporting cast.

Sarnoski is often content to focus his camera on a small detail or glance, or to cut away right in the middle of a dramatic moment, as if trying to represent cinematically the mindfulness that Robin seeks, and that maybe he lost with the theft of his pig.

The Atlantic  also enjoys Sarnoski's work:

As Rob invades various Portland houses of haute cuisine   in search of his pig, the film turns into something of a food travelogue. The first-time writer-director Michael Sarnoski (who co-wrote the story with Vanessa Block) beautifully shoots each sumptuous meal that Rob and his nervy ally, Amir (Alex Wolff), take in as they search for Pig’s kidnapper.

Nicolas Cage is known for his intense and unique acting style, but many of his films have fared poorly with critics, such as the generally derided action-comedy  Willy's Wonderland .  Pig  bucks this trend by earning plaudits for Cage's performance as well as its pacing and direction. The movie has a 97% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 82 on Metacritic, as well as high audience scores, suggesting that many viewers, as well as critics, enjoyed seeing Cage in this offbeat thriller.

Next:  Every Upcoming Nicolas Cage Movie & TV Show

• SR Originals

Review by Brian Eggert August 1, 2021

Robin Feld lives with his truffle pig deep in the Oregonian wilderness. He has no water heater or shower, just a nearby stream. His business partner delivers supplies in exchange for truffles, which his pet pig forages and his partner sells in the city’s competitive high-cuisine marketplace. His existence is quiet and solitary, his time filled by cooking elaborate meals, such as a rustic mushroom tart in his cast-iron skillet, and sharing it with his snouted companion. The first words we hear him speak are “I’m okay,” a sign of self-reassurance that indicates something has driven Robin to live in these conditions for the last 15 years. However, his reclusive lifestyle comes to an abrupt end when someone beats him unconscious and steals his animal, inciting a dogged search in Portland’s restauranteur underground. Mysterious and rather profound, Pig stars Nicolas Cage as Robin, and it’s the feature debut of co-writer and director Michael Sarnoski. Based on its setup and star, you might form some preconceptions about the narrative’s trajectory and the film’s tone, and this review will explore them in detail. Though, Pig should be experienced without knowing where it’s going. Consider seeing the film before you continue reading, knowing only that it features Cage’s best performance in years and leaves a powerful mark on the viewer. 

Pig takes place in the cutthroat world of truffle hunting, where sometimes ruthless people scheme to get this earthy ingredient, worth thousands of dollars per pound, into the best restaurants. Historically, people have used female pigs to seek out truffles; the fungus’ scent naturally draws them since it resembles a male pig’s mating pheromones. But in recent decades, truffle foragers switched to dogs since pigs tend to eat the luxury Tuber and damage their growing conditions. Dogs learn to sniff out truffles without risk to the crop, and a well-trained foraging animal becomes a valuable tool for foragers or a threat to competitors. Sadly, rivals steal or even poison a staggering number of truffle dogs every year. The 2019 book The Truffle Underground and last year’s documentary The Truffle Hunters detail a wild and vicious marketplace, located predominantly in Europe, where black-truffle farmers, white-truffle foragers, and truffle bandits compete in a high-stakes industry. Sarnoski’s film takes place on the edges of Oregon’s less volatile truffle and foodie scene, but that’s just the backdrop of this soul-searching work. 

Cage performs in a mode audiences haven’t seen from him in some time. This isn’t another of his low-budget actioners with a forgettable title, like Drive Angry (2011) or Seeking Justice (2012), nor one of his tasty genre morsels like Mandy (2018) or Color Out of Space (2020) that have earned him cult cred in recent years. Instead, his performance in Pig recalls his Oscar-winning work in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and nominated turns in Adaptation. (2002). Cage, whose company Saturn Films co-produced, reminds us that when he’s doing the work for more than a quick paycheck, he’s capable of brilliance. As Robin’s mission to recover his pig continues, the performance becomes ever more complex and dependent on a balance of rage, grief, and self-certainty. It’s a carefully measured physical performance as well, with the same tortured quality of his injured cop in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009). Thrashed and covered in swollen bruises and dried blood, Robin lurches from one scene to the next. But rather than confront each situation like a monster, he reengages his past life with a new perspective. Cage plays the contrast beautifully. 

Gradually, we learn more about Robin, who once dominated Portland’s food subculture as a legendary chef. Then his wife died, and he disappeared into the woods. We also learn about Amir, whose mother attempted suicide and whose father, Darius (Adam Arkin), keeps her nestled away on life support. “When you’re like that,” he says of his mother’s depression, “it’s gonna happen sooner or later.” And we wonder if that’s what will happen to Robin. Amir is desperate for his father’s approval, so he projects success and feigns culture—he only listens to classical music, or rather, an audio course explaining how to appreciate classical music. Amir is one of many characters in Pig who adopts an image or embraces an occupation yet remains untrue to themselves. Gradually, Robin’s austere sense of certainty about his pig, his conviction about his wants and needs, becomes a stark counterpoint to others living an affected life.  

In a wonderfully acted and written scene, Robin and Amir dine at a restaurant whose chef (David Knell) once worked for Robin. It’s a highbrow place that serves art cuisine, and it’s impossible to get a table. But Robin’s name opens a lot of doors. Searching for his pig, Robin confronts the chef, an avid truffle buyer, and tells him, “You aren’t real.” The chef once dreamed of opening a true English-style pub, where he planned to serve bar food. Instead, he has since conformed to the realm of high-level restaurants and meticulous concept food. “Why do you care about these people?” Robin asks him. Even though he’s riddled with battle wear and a frightening sight in the restaurant’s antiseptic space, Robin follows Polonius’ adage to thine own self be true . He encourages the chef to stop putting on airs. And that’s when the camera cuts to Amir, a walking façade, finds his eyes welling up with tears. “We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” Robin says, devastatingly. 

For Robin—who later admits he doesn’t need his pig to find truffles, he just loves her—the pig is a symbol of everything pure and true, of our core desires and pleasures. Their simple life together has become his haven. She’s a companion that, like a dog, answers to a whistle and follows her master. But unlike a dog, she represents a bygone era of truffle hunting. She’s an embodiment of the past, the force that shapes every major character in Pig . However, the future is just as powerful. Another speech finds Robin waxing about the inevitable earthquake that will rock the West Coast and leave everyone with no way to escape certain doom. Still, as the film carries on, Robin finds that he can help others confront what they have denied or tried to escape through food. A pivotal moment comes when Robin cooks a specific meal for Amir and Darius. Arkin, who at first plays Darius like an intimidating gangster, reveals that he is tortured by the past like Amir and Robin. It takes only a few bites of Robin’s cooking to cause Darius to relive everything that turned him into a coldhearted godfather of truffles, revelations after which he crumbles emotionally.

Sarnoski’s assured debut creates an almost mythic underworld in Portland, propelled by hidden markets, shady deals, artistic ambitions, and massive profits. It’s a confident and controlled first feature as you’re ever likely to see. At times, it’s almost meditative about our emotional connection to food and its rare ability to channel a memory from the senses. Unfolding in a series of chapters with names such as “Mom’s French Toast & Deconstructed Scallops” or “A Bottle, A Bird, A Salted Baguette,” the film is wrapped in heartbreak and remembrance. Robin passes through places and reconnects with people he hasn’t seen for years, but he can never return to this life. He belongs in the woods. When Robin first comes back, Sarnoski and editor Brett W. Bachman render cinematographer Patrick Scola’s otherwise sullen images in a kaleidoscopic blur. The lights and noises present Robin, who has found peace in the forest, with a sensory overload. Elsewhere, Scola relies perhaps too much on shaky handheld images to give the film its sense of grit and emotional rawness. But the performers carry us through every scene, giving them dimension with their persistent heartbreak and growing self-certainty. 

At one point, Cage enters a diner, and a Tom Waits song plays on the radio. How appropriate, since Pig feels like the cinematic equivalent of one of Waits’ gravelly voiced outpourings, somewhere between “Hold On” and “Misery is the River of the World.” It’s rough around the edges yet also beautiful and life-affirming. It questions how people resolve to adopt roles or wear masks, while underneath, they remain unhappy and betrayed by themselves. Somber and cynical about our habit of choosing financial comfort and assimilation over our dreams, Sarnoski’s film asks that we question whether our choices are authentic. For many viewers, it will be the last thing they expected from a Nicolas Cage film. For some of us, it’s the long-overdue return of an actor whose presence nearly gave in to irony. But Pig is a rare film that treats its characters with an open heart and its themes with an intimate profundity that never feels affected or disingenuous. Like Robin’s effect on other characters, it can take people to places they may not want to go but should.

Related Titles

The Definitives

• In Theaters

Recent Reviews

• Strange Darling 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Blink Twice 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Alien: Romulus 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Skincare 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Sing Sing 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Borderlands 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
• Dìdi 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Cuckoo 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Instigators 2 Stars ☆ ☆
• Trap 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: House of Pleasures 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: La chimera 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Deadpool & Wolverine 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Starve Acre 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Twisters 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆

Recent Articles

• Interview: Jeff Vande Zande, Author of The Dance of Rotten Sticks
• The Definitives: Nocturama
• Guest Appearance: KARE 11 - Hidden Gems of Summer
• The Labyrinth of Memory in Chris Marker’s La Jetée
• Reader's Choice: Thanksgiving
• Reader's Choice: Perfect Days
• The Definitives: Kagemusha
• The Scrappy Independents of Mumblegore
• Reader's Choice: Creep 2
• Reader's Choice: The Innkeepers

• Movie Reviews
• Blu-ray/DVD

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

'pig' (2021) movie review.

In a general way,  Pig  asks the question: What if  John Wick , but quiet and meditatively self-destructive instead of head-shooty gun fu? The setup is similar: A reclusive loner who used to be someone in a very niche world, in this case former celebrated chef Robin Feld ( Cage ), loses a beloved animal companion, a truffle-hunting pig, and must reluctantly dive back into his old life. Both men are damaged, heavy with loss, and the bond with the animal in question represents something much deeper and more meaningful than surface trappings belie. 

[Related Reading: 'Pig' Trailer: Nicolas Cage Hunts for His Kidnapped Pig. Yes This is a Real Movie]

But the parallels continue even beyond that narrative framework.  John Wick  creates a sprawling criminal realm full of boogeymen, with its own currency, and an intricate shared mythology.  Pig  does something similar. Who knew the restaurant scene in Portland, Oregon was really an expansive underground full of hidden food-worker fight clubs, a rigid feudal caste system, and its own twisted legends, where you can walk into an establishment, whisper the name Robin Feld, and the entire dining room goes silent? Yes, the restaurant industry is cutthroat and ruthless, but this imagining plays out like its own world of organized crime, where dishwashers serve as gatekeepers and whispered names echo through hallowed halls.

Writer/director Michael Sarnoski, and co-writer Vanessa Block, craft this heightened hyper-reality that both rings true but also has an edge of fairy tale allegory. This is the world seen through a warped lens—sometimes mildly warped, others more drastically—it’s authenticity with a surrealist flourish. But just a hint, just enough to color everything with a shade or two of off-kilter strangeness. 

[Related Reading: 'Willy's Wonderland' Movie Review: Nic Cage Battles Possessed Animatronics]

And that’s where  Pig  is strongest, in that it never makes the easy or expected choices. Across the board. This plot sounds like a revenge movie, and hearing the basics for the first time, it’s hard not to imagine full-on mega-acting Nicolas Cage rampaging through restaurants yelling about his pig. On one hand, that’s basically what happens, but not how it sounds. The filmmakers know how it looks, and what the audience expects, and they deliver something different.

Instead of barging in and shooting up a joint, Robin quietly destroys a chef with a few words and reminders of his previous dreams. Instead of bribing an underground hobo-king with money, he arrives with a specific plate of food from a particular food truck as payment, like a coin paid to Charon . Instead of building to a climactic shootout, guns blazing and bullets flying, the showdown is a discreet, serene sit-down dinner in an elegant home.

[Related Reading: 'Prisoners of the Ghostland' Movie Review: Cinematic Lunatics Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono Unite]

For all the often well-deserved reputation he’s earned for a variety of low-budget, DTV histrionics present in his modern filmography, once a year or so Cage likes to remind us of what he can do when invested and engaged, that he makes daring choices no other actor would even consider. And he’s mesmerizing. (I maintain that he almost always at least makes interesting choices, but this is another level.) Understated and artful, he still takes unusual paths, but he opts for restrained intimacy rather than unhinged lunacy. Reclusive and shattered, he’s pieced together the fragments of his life, held together in the most tenuous fashion, and when it all falls apart in a single instant, it’s moving and heartbreaking, and he hands in one of the performances of the year. Maybe his career.

Alex Wolff ( Hereditary ) plays the foil, Amir, a brash young buyer of Robin’s truffles and the chef’s last remaining link to the world. The son of a big player in the food scene, a kind of de facto godfather, Amir’s cocky, arrogant exterior masks his own insecurities and wounds. Striking out on his own, attempting to both prove himself to his father and make his way on his own terms—and with no idea who his business partner used to be—he serves as Rob’s sounding board and as a stand-in for the audience, unravelling the mystery as we do. The two are sides of the same coin, more alike than it initially appears, and they form a strong core duo.

[Related Reading: 'Hereditary' Movie Review]

It’s crazy that  Pig  is a feature debut for both Sarnoski and Block because it has a steady, assured hand in every regard that comes across as that of experienced filmmakers. The film isn’t afraid to take wild chances, but at the same time, earns and pays off every last one. It’s lovely movie to look at, and for the “ Keep Portland Weird ” set, it certainly captures the Rose City’s left-of-center countenance and the things that set the city apart. Throw a top-tier Nicolas Cage performance, and this movie winds up beautiful, unique, and unlike anything else.  [Grade: A]

No comments:

Post a Comment

• Charlotte's Web

Babe: Pig in the City

• Animal Farm

The 30 Best Movies With Pigs, Ranked

Pigs have trotted their way into the hearts of moviegoers, often stealing the spotlight with their animalistic charm, clever wit, and strangely adorable personalities. Movies with pigs have long captivated viewers with their ability to convey rich, layered themes through animal characters that reflect our own struggles and triumphs. While some of these films are simply made to entertain children, some of these movies about pigs serve as reflections on human nature, societal norms, and personal growth

From the nostalgic charm of classic children's literature adaptations like  Charlotte's Web to the social and political allegories in animated and live-action films like  Animal Farm  and 2021’s  Pig , pigs have rooted themselves firmly in cinematic history with the ability to have stories told about them that transcend stereotypical ideas. The humble pig, often underestimated, serves as a profound symbol of innocence, resilience, and often, unsuspected heroism in its tales, and the best movies with pigs, no matter how small the swine's roll, showcase this brilliantly

This list highlights some of the best movies featuring pigs, celebrating their unique contributions to storytelling. Each film offers a different perspective on these intelligent and endearing animals, making them unforgettable parts of cinematic history. As a result, the varied and dynamic range of movies with pigs demonstrates not only the adaptability of these characters but also their indelible impact on audiences and storytelling. Don't forget to vote for your favorite pig movie to help shape this ultimate collection.  

How Swine Steal the Show:

This heartwarming classic centers around Babe, a piglet aspiring to become a sheepdog. Charm, wit, and courage define his journey, defying expectations and capturing hearts. Babe’s story explores identity, diversity, and acceptance, symbolizing extraordinary potential within all of us and making him an iconic cinematic pig.

Plot Summary:

• Actors : James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski, Hugo Weaving, Mary Acres, David Webb
• Released : 1995
• Directed by : Chris Noonan

The Muppets

Reviving a beloved franchise, Miss Piggy exudes glamour and comedic timing. Her presence enriches the plot as the Muppets reunite to save their theater. Miss Piggy symbolizes ambition and loyalty, reinforcing her status as one of the most memorable pigs in film history.

• Actors : Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Alan Arkin
• Released : 2011
• Directed by : James Bobin

Piglet's Big Movie

• Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Small yet courageous, Piglet steps into the limelight, proving his significance within the Hundred Acre Wood. The narrative positions the diminutive pig as a hero, demonstrating that even the smallest can have a major impact. Focusing on Piglet’s adventures and the appreciation from his friends, Piglet's Big Movie  effectively communicates themes of self-worth and belonging, resonating with all ages.

• Actors : John Fiedler, Jim Cummings, Andre Stojka, Kath Soucie, Nikita Hopkins
• Released : 2003
• Directed by : Francis Glebas

Venturing into uncharted urban territories, Babe contrasts his familiar farm landscape with the bustling city. This sequel highlights Babe to explore themes of bravery, kindness, and adaptability. Through his unyielding optimism and compassion, Babe’s resilience and lasting appeal are showcased, making this a touching continuation of his story.

• Actors : Magda Szubanski, James Cromwell, Mary Stein, Mickey Rooney, Julie Godfrey
• Released : 1998
• Directed by : George Miller

Gunter’s energy and zest for life return, driving many of Sing 2's  entertaining moments. His pig-like exuberance showcases the pursuit of musical aspirations, emphasizing resilience and creativity. His journey captivates viewers, continuing the pig’s role in embodying the joy and spirit of performing arts.

• Actors : Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Bobby Cannavale
• Released : 2021
• Directed by : Garth Jennings, Christophe Lourdelet

The Angry Birds Movie

Pigs play clever antagonists, fueling the conflict with their schemes to steal bird eggs. Their mischievous behavior is central to the plot, creating a classic struggle between cunning foes and determined heroes. The pigs’ colorful animation and antics keep The Angry Birds Movie  vibrant and engaging.

• Actors : Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader
• Released : 2016
• Directed by : Clay Kaytis, Fergal Reilly