Movie Thoughts: Pig

The best films are ones that surprise you with their brilliance. Pig is special. It features an old lion returning to form and a wicked new talent born into the public consciousness. I will remember where I was and how I felt upon seeing this for the first time.

Go into this movie knowing nothing. I’d seen no trailers, no reviews. Only word of mouth saying it was Cage’s best performance in years and a brief plot description. None of that spoils anything. This movie is not what it appears. I will do my best not to give anything away.

The story unfolds masterfully, and all the emotions that make cinema worth it are here — redemption, grief, hate, fear, respect, revulsion, rage. A few weeks ago I saw Black Widow and mentioned that for all the spectacle, I didn’t really FEEL anything. This film is brewed in quiet, brooding silence, but you will most certainly feel many things.

Nicolas Cage’s lauded performance is well deserved; it not only lives up to the hype but, IMO, soars beyond it. I’ve loved him since Con Air but lost touch as his role choices seemed to get more and more erratic. He was no longer an Oscar winner exploring his range, he was the weird guy who built a small marble pyramid to be buried in. The last thing I saw him in was Oliver Stone’s limpdick Snowden biopic in 2016.

It’s easy to forget how technically “good” Cage is as an actor. He rarely speaks for nearly the first third of the movie but you hardly realize it. Then, his character Rob gives a short monologue that is one of the most…