As of late Nicolas Cage has been on the upswing with some great flicks including PIG, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and most recently Longlegs. His latest film The Surfer, teams him up with Vivarium director Lorcan Finnegan and co-stars Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsell, Alexander Bertrand, and Justin Rosniak. Could this latest film in Cage’s filmography offer something refreshing or will it get lost in the surf?

 

The Surfer follows a man who returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son.  But his desire to hit the waves is thwarted by a group of locals whose mantra is “don’t live here, don’t surf here.”  Humiliated and angry, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising in concert with the punishing heat of the summer and pushes him to his breaking point. 

 

This is one of the few trailers of a Cage film that I didn’t see before watching so had no idea what I was in for. Initially on the surface the film feels like it is heading into a film like Falling Down with Cage slowly losing it and just waiting for him to snap and fight back. That context stays throughout with is seemingly heading in a more psychedelic direction making Cage and the audience question what is real and what isn’t.

 

Nicolas Cage is in fully manic form in the best way possible, slowly descending into madness as he is pulled in so many frustrating directions. As he tries to do the best thing for his family every possible thing that could go wrong does while adding the locals causing even more trouble to his life. The story is seemingly simple, but as it gets more and more out there it adds layers that keep you guessing and second guessing what’s happening.

 

I loved the dynamic between Cage and McMahon who plays a surf guru of sorts. There is clearly some sort of game happening here and only one of them knows