The Surfer, directed by Lorcan Finnegan, is in cinemas now.
Following storming turns in Pig, Mandy and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the promise of Nicolas Cage playing yet another unhinged dude losing his cool will be catnip to fans.
This time he’s the unnamed guy of the title in a bonkers B-movie thriller fighting a surf-turf war and toxic masculinity on a Western Australian beach.
Cage’s Lexus-driving yuppie needs approval within the next 48 hours for a loan if he’s to buy his dream coastal property near where he spent his childhood. Stealing his estranged son away from school to take him surfing at the picturesque break, the divorced dad is spouting wave-rider cod philosophy into deaf teenage ears when they encounter a crew of hostile locals. “Don’t live here, don’t surf here!” threatens a local punk.
The hostile welcome is reinforced by Scally (Julian McMahon), the charismatic leader of the “Bay Boys”. He spouts Manosphere nonsense such as “you have to feel worthless before you are priceless” and reigns with the man-up school of bullying being sold to our young men online.
Irish director Lorcan Finnegan’s (Vivarium) fabulous opening titles hark back to European films of the 1960s and 70s, with a glorious soundtrack that evokes old-world Italian gialli. This out-of-step style enhances the tonal disconnect between Cage’s modern protagonist – an American returning to his Australian hometown to settle closer to his son – with the unravelling of his sunburnt sanity.
As the Surfer tries and fails to raise his loan, find his phone, start his car, retain various possessions, he suffers fleeting … hallucinations? Flashbacks? Imaginings? We are kept (as is he) confused but committed as tensions grow.
Finnegan does well, helped of course by Cage’s assured performance, to tighten knots in stomachs. No need for darkness or shadows – this psychological thriller is cleverly set almost entirely in the scorching Western Australian sunshine. The plot turns relentlessly unnerving as the Surfer is gaslit, assaulted and abused.
This makes the maddening mystery of the man’s predicament all the more sinister, saying insanity can get to you anywhere. While it’s hard to pin down what the heck is going on, Cage’s desperate performance is still intoxicating – hugely sympathetic and desperately sad. And it’s a scorcher of a story.
In cinemas Now
Sarah Watt
