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Pig Movie Review

Pig is a 2021 drama film directed by Michael Sarnoski in his feature directorial debut and starring Nicholas Cage. It is a true indie gem.

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“I love her“

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The movie follows a truffle forager whose beloved pig gets abducted. He then tries to bring her back. First off, that beginning with the abduction very much was influenced by the first act of the first ‘John Wick’ movie. However, unlike that bloody and testosterone-fueled franchise, this movie takes an anti-thriller, anti-crime thesis in its approach.

Unlike so many similar premises, Pig goes into a completely different, pacifist and more meditative direction that worked wonders to make it not only different from others, but also more sophisticated and thematically rich. It is a slower film in essence and certainly not for everybody, but if you give it a chance, it will affect you deeply as it did me. I almost cried during one particularly sad moment in the third act.

All of that raw emotion was truly earned instead of being manipulative like so many other movies with a similar subject matter. This indie earns all of its empathy and tragedy because it has no painfully annoying monologues and obvious scenarios. It is about a man who lost his pig and feels great pain because of it. The picture revels in its simplicity and is all the better for it.

Depicting the many shady practices of food companies and how they will stop at nothing to make their business more profitable, the movie offers a painful, but necessary message about animal cruelty, lack of human empathy and the importance of true culinary practices and respecting the great chefs among us.

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Speaking of that last bit, the scene where he makes a meal to appease a man responsible for the pig’s abduction was truly touching as it pleasantly reminded me of a somewhat similar, by now classic sequence in ‘Ratatouille’. It has that nostalgic and highly moving quality to it, and most of the film has that aura of melancholy and permeating sadness. It’s not an easy watch, but it’s a necessary one.

Alex Wolff is quite strong as Amir and the relationship between him and the protagonist is complex and interesting. It eventually develops into an understanding between the two, but the journey had been tough before it. Adam Arkin as Darius is also very commendable in a decidedly smaller role.

But Pig is all about Nicholas Cage and this is the film that will hopefully lead to better, more meaningful projects in the future for this once great, but now problematic actor. Gone is his usual theatrical excursion into yelling and acting crazy. Instead, here is a man that is obviously aching and you feel that pain due to an understated, very raw and affecting performance from rarely-better Cage. He deserves all the praise that he got for this strong work.

My only issue with Pig is that it has some typical trappings of US independent cinema, such as a particularly slow pace, many prolonged scenes that are uneventful in nature and an especially frustrating emphasis on brooding, moody and slow speech manners. All of these have become indie clichés by now, but thankfully the film was elevated due to its solid technical aspects, excellent direction from this promising new director and an approach that is refreshingly anti-climactic and restrained.

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