Pig: A Surprisingly Cathartic Drama Veiled As A Revenge Film
Writer/director Michael Sarnoski cooks up a sublimely subversive three-course meal with his feature film debut, Pig. Although it’s masked as a revenge film, at its core Pig is a profound, genuinely affecting drama that proves that revenge doesn’t always have to be such a cold, violent dish.
A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.
Looks are delightfully deceiving in Michael Sarnoski’s Pig. What appears to be another eccentric and absurd Nicolas Cage vehicle at first blush turns out to be one of the most restrained and refined performances of the veteran actor’s career, as well as one of the most affecting films of the year. It’s a strange alchemy of MANDY, John Wick, and Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow; there’s odd mystique and underground worlds/syndicates, but it’s all firmly grounded, perpetually straight-faced, and surprisingly tender. Although it takes the shape of a revenge film, it eventually reaches a crossroads and decides to go a different direction that ultimately transcends the subgenre entirely.
Much of the path that Pig takes feels like familiar terrain, but it never goes the way you think it will. There are no guns and no wild Nic Cage freak outs. The only knives shown are for culinary purposes. The closest thing to weapons are words, which are often just as sharp as the knives used for meal prep. There are minor spats of violence, but Pig is not a violent film; it’s a film about emotional trauma and loss that takes us all on a quest toward healing. Each scene unlocks rich new layers in the story and its characters, which pulls you further and further into this unusual and wonderful tale that both is and is not about a man and his pig.
Rather than submit to the standard practice of catharsis through violence, Pig seeks to cleanse its viewers with feeling, and it’s all the better for it. The broad strokes of its plot are fairly basic, but Sarnoski smartly seasons it with subtext and allows those elements to add depth to the story and its characters. For the most part, we get to learn new information at the same time as the characters, and this intensifies the film’s emotional charge. When we first meet the truffle-foraging Rob and his business partner Amir (Alex Wolff), an amateur supplier of luxury ingredients to high-end restaurants, we don’t know much about them other than what we can observe on the surface. This is because neither Rob nor Amir knows much about the other, and things probably would have stayed that way if fate didn’t draw them together. It’s not until the titular pig is stolen that the two become more than just business associates, both to each other and to the viewer. Throughout their shared emotional journey, they begin to forge a tight bond, and it’s through their relationship that the film’s true meaning emerges.
Pig is about loss, but it’s more so about connection, compassion, and friendship. Both Rob and Amir are connected through food and a mutual feeling of loss (Rob with his wife, and Amir with his mother), and they slowly understand the complexities of their connection as they continue opening up to one another. The film is also about sharing. There’s an emphasis on being vulnerable and sharing your feelings and experience with someone. Food plays a monumental role in the film, and there’s special care taken to showcase the love and consideration put into its preparation. No one eats anything alone; a meal is an experience that is shared amongst people, friends. One could also say the film is about the lengths we go for love and the pain in which we endure in hopes of maintaining it. All are true. A major part of what makes this film so quietly magical is how it gracefully tucks so much into its breezy 90-minute runtime, and even though it takes you on some laughably outlandish pitstops, they’re never played for laughs and feel very believable and at home in the world the film creates.
When you really get down to it, all the ingredients Sarnoski blends together make Pig a well-seasoned and emotionally flavorful artisan dish; the cinematography is scrumptious; the direction is unobtrusive and constantly in service to the characters and the narrative; the writing is rich; the editing is tight and highlights the smaller character moments; the performances are uniformly terrific, with Cage and Wolff shining the brightest. Its last scene might just break you, but there’s a hopeful tint to its bittersweet close. In truth, Pig is really the total package and without a doubt one of the year’s best films. It’s the strongest debut we’ve seen since The Vast Of Night, and it brands Michael Sarnoski as an exciting new talent with a promising future.
Recommendation: Whether you’re a fan of Nicolas Cage or not, everyone should give Pig a watch! It’s easily one of the strongest films we’ve received so far this year.
Rating: 5 vanishing pigs outta 5.
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