GENRE | Nicolas Cage Hunts Truffles – Looking for 'Pig'

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

Neon / Elevation Pictures

First-time filmmaker Michael Sarnoski writes and directs a tender character drama about a once-renowned Oreganian chef turned reclusive truffle forager (a remarkable Nicolas Cage) tracking down his missing pet companion. Pig is a small-scale yet utterly grounded riff on the revenge thriller told through human trauma with a detour through the Portland food scene.

Co-starring Alex Wolff and Adam Arkin as father and son pair of shady restaurant suppliers, they are two of a very minimal cast set in our real world. In contrast, Cage's Robin is a severe loner tormented by past trauma and made peaceful in seclusion deep in the woods. When his beloved pig truffle finder is violently kidnapped, he's forced to re-enter his old life to hunt down who's responsible and get back his only companion.

Sarnoski commits to the intimate nature of the focused story just as Cage gives himself to his character. Pig walks a delicate balance of soulful human drama and borderline self-parody of genre films about revenge and loss motivated a protagonist to exact revenge but using fine dining in place of conventional action.

Cage and Sarnoski come together for such a mournful but measured mediation on loss and seclusion. It's a haunting portrait of withdrawal told with such control in the style of a revenge fable about the isolation of grief within the backdrop of a culinary satire set against the moving landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.

Pig screens at the Rio Theatre and is also available to stream on various digital platforms and through video on demand.


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