- 16/05/2025
Nicolas Cage just wants to surf, but he - and the audience - aren't getting any, as Film Brain reviews this strange, surreal psychological thriller where Cage does what he does best: go crazy.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to Projector, and on this episode, Nicolas Cage is riding a wave of madness as the Surfer.
00:23The Surfer, played by Nicolas Cage, takes his kid, played by Finn Little, to Luna Bay,
00:28where he hopes to buy his childhood home that overlooks the waves.
00:32But once there, the Surfer is accosted by the local bay boys, led by Julian McMahon's Scali,
00:37who tells him, don't live here, don't surf here.
00:40But the Surfer is determined to get the house and ride the waves,
00:44but as he stays longer in Luna Bay, the more he loses everything, even his sanity.
00:51Let's get one thing out of the way straight off the bat.
00:54This isn't a film about surfing. Well, not really, anyway.
00:58It might be about a Surfer, but there's very little actual surfing in it at all,
01:02so if you come expecting a lot of sick waves like Blue Crush or something, you ain't getting that.
01:08That's a very deliberate choice, because the film is all about that frustration.
01:12The Surfer wants to surf, we've been promised surfing, and yet we get denied that over and over again.
01:19The movie withholds that promise from you for almost the entire length of the running time,
01:23taunting you with the prospect of it.
01:26It's one of the many ways the film builds attention in the audience.
01:29We, like the Surfer himself, are not getting what we want.
01:33People use surfing to relieve stress, and the Surfer just wants to unwind, but he can't.
01:39It builds up this constant sense of discomfort and anxiety, that denial of release.
01:45And that decision is very much a microcosm of the Surfer as a whole.
01:49It's about a great many things, but surfing isn't one of them.
01:53Instead, it's going for something much more psychological and philosophical.
01:57It's a surfing movie not in the literal sense, but more as a state of mind.
02:02That shouldn't come as much of a surprise when you consider this is held by Irish director
02:05Lorcan Finnegan, who made Vivarium and Nocebo, both of which were small contained films
02:11that tortured and twisted their protagonists in existential traps.
02:15There were commentaries on parenthood and consumerism, respectively.
02:19The Surfer is in the same mould, touching on both of Finnegan's prior themes,
02:23but especially on ideas of identity and masculinity.
02:27So what do the Waves represent?
02:28They're the dream and ideal.
02:31They're the serenity that the Surfer has been chasing after all of his life.
02:35He left Australia at a young age,
02:37but he spent his whole existence in pursuit of recapturing what he had as a kid.
02:41Everything that he's ever done is about getting back to that place,
02:45and that dream is within touching distance.
02:47He can almost taste the success.
02:49He just has to hold onto his board just that little bit longer.
02:53He's put in an offer for the house, but it's very competitive.
02:56He's making frantic calls and his broker isn't certain that he can raise the money to counter the
03:01other offer, which the realtor seems more than inclined to accept.
03:05But he's so close that he even imagines himself in that house,
03:10standing on the balcony overlooking the bay and the water.
03:13It's already his because it belongs to him in his mind.
03:17He's just taking back what's his.
03:19And if he can visualise that dream, it's already real.
03:23But there's early hints that this single-minded pursuit of a dream has cost the Surfer much already.
03:28He takes his kid to the bay because he thinks that sharing his childhood memories with his
03:32son and surfing together will connect them.
03:34But the kid isn't really interested in that.
03:37But the Surfer doesn't realise that really it's all for himself.
03:41The kid just wants his father to be there, to be with his family,
03:45something that he hasn't paid as much attention to as he should.
03:48Even his wife has moved on to someone else and is calling him to try and finalise their divorce,
03:53which is just another thing he's trying to negotiate.
03:57This is in fact a Christmas film and plays out in the days leading up to it.
04:00But of course it's Australia, so it's the height of their summer.
04:04But it represents a time for families to come together.
04:07And so it becomes a ticking clock that the Surfer has to get this deal done by Christmas.
04:12Once he buys this house,
04:13he'll fix all of his problems and everything will be perfect just the way he wants.
04:19But his ambition is more of a delusion of what his reality is.
04:23And the film exists in that kind of dream-like state,
04:26and slowly turns it into this walking, seemingly never-ending nightmare bit by bit.
04:32The entire film takes place in Luna Bay,
04:34both the beach and the cliff-top car part that overlooks it,
04:37and almost the whole thing takes place in the open air.
04:40But it soon becomes a prison where there are no bars.
04:43The bay boys keep telling him to leave,
04:45and getting more threatening with each passing encounter.
04:48But for whatever reason, he can't.
04:51Initially, the Surfer won't leave because of his stubbornness.
04:55But then circumstances start to conspire against him.
04:58He runs out of battery on his car, running the air con all night so he can sleep.
05:02So he then becomes simply unable to leave.
05:05And the more he stays, the more trapped he becomes.
05:10The Surfer starts the film with all the knick-knacks of modern life,
05:13and all the symbols of wealth and success.
05:15He's got the big luxury car with all the mod cons.
05:18He's got a nice suit and shoes. He's got his surfboard.
05:22He's even got a refillable water bottle.
05:24But then, one by one, all those things start vanishing and disappearing.
05:29He's being stripped, piece by piece, of all the things that make him what he is and define him.
05:36And this is where the film starts to falter somewhat.
05:39Obviously, there is a surreal dream logic to what's going on,
05:42that things suddenly vanish without any explanation.
05:45But there are other moments where the Surfer has bits of PLOS-induced stupidity,
05:50like leaving his jacket and shoes outside of a toilet cubicle,
05:53and wouldn't you know it, they're gone by the time he comes out.
05:57You sometimes get a bit frustrated at this,
05:59and not quite in the sense that the movie wants you to be,
06:02because you can tell the story needs something to happen,
06:05but has to force them to, even when it's a bit of a stretch in the moment.
06:10It's also around this point where the film starts to emphasise the mirroring of the Surfer,
06:14with a local beach bum, played by Nicholas Chassim.
06:17The theme of fathers and sons is particularly prominent in this subplot,
06:21with the bum bearing a grudge against Scali because he blames him for the death of his son,
06:26and he lives out of his car, being mocked and abused by the boys.
06:30In the mirror of the film, the bum vanishes, and the Surfer starts trading places with him,
06:36taking his clothes and possessions to replace what has been taken,
06:39to the point where he effectively becomes him.
06:42Just this walking symbol of a man who has lost everything,
06:46and so easily slips into the role that the locals don't even acknowledge the change.
06:51It all happens with this bizarre, strange logic,
06:54but it's crucial to a film which is almost entirely metaphorical and existential.
07:00It's also an extremely Nicolas Cage role to play.
07:03He's always been drawn towards extreme characters that play towards his famously expressionistic
07:08acting style, and it's very easy to see why this role appealed to him,
07:12and he's also a producer on the film.
07:14In a way, his role as the Surfer might be the performance that encompasses every type of
07:20Nick Cage role he can think of, because he has to run through so many different emotions
07:24as the character goes through his transformation.
07:26He's fascinated by characters that disintegrate and fall apart in odd ways,
07:31and placed at centre stage in every scene,
07:33you watch him go from being a comfortably well-adjusted man
07:36to being this howling heap of despair and pity.
07:40And Cage is utterly committed to diving as deep as he can
07:44into the character's absolute desperation and indignity
07:47that reeks off of him after several days exposed in the sun
07:51without almost anything to eat or drink.
07:54And Cage's voice grows raspier and his face more burnt.
07:58For someone who once infamously ate a cockroach on camera,
08:01things like drinking from puddles is almost a homecoming.
08:04And you do get a few moments that are bound to make the Nick Cage freak out supercuts.
08:09Most notably some business with a dead rat, where he exclaims,
08:12EAT THE RAT! EAT THE RAT!
08:15But largely you watch with a sense of sadness, as he's worn away and anonymised to the point where
08:20he can barely cry,
08:22I HAVE A NAME!
08:23Which is rather bitterly ironic for a film where most of the characters,
08:27including the surfer himself, aren't actually given any except for their archetypes.
08:32However, Finnegan leans far too heavily on Cage's histrionics to prop up the film in this middle act,
08:37to the point where the actor is left with very little to work with in near total isolation.
08:43It's pretty clear that Finnegan is taking particular inspiration from 70s
08:47osboitation classics like Wake and Fry.
08:50And while it isn't an out-and-out horror film like his previous works,
08:54at least in my opinion, I would consider it to be a psychological drama or thriller.
08:58And certainly it has elements of horror, particularly some sharp violent flash cuts,
09:04that suggest that the surfer's childhood wasn't quite as idyllic as he remembers it to be.
09:10The film often looks absolutely fantastic.
09:12It's got these almost ratinous, scorchingly bright, saturated colours
09:16that make you feel the intensity of the heat and the sun bearing down constantly.
09:21And as the main character fries like an egg,
09:23the more woozy and hallucinogenic the movie starts to feel as time blurs together.
09:29There's a scene where Scali and the surfer talk,
09:32and the whole conversation has water rippling over the frame,
09:35like you're just under the surface,
09:37which is such a striking visual,
09:40and genuinely made me wonder, how did they do that?
09:43But that section of the film where the surfer loses all of his possessions
09:47quickly becomes extremely repetitive.
09:50Once he's lost a few things, you very quickly know what's going on,
09:54but you have to sit through this protracted cycle of the surfer,
09:57going to all the hostile, almost grotesque locals for help,
10:00like Justin Rosniak's cop, who we instantly know is in on things.
10:05But the surfer has to be oblivious, so they can take and take and take.
10:10It is exasperating watching Cage for almost a straight hour be bullied,
10:14emasculated and gaslit into submission,
10:16to the point where it's genuinely a difficult watch at times,
10:20but it's also exasperating in the sense that it feels like the film is just on a loop,
10:25and Finnegan is stretching out the minimalist setup,
10:27rather than expanding upon his themes and ideas.
10:30And I do have to admit that while I was watching the film,
10:33I didn't really know if I liked it or not,
10:36and there was a point where I was leaning towards not,
10:39but the film makes a recovery in its final section
10:41that makes its intentions much clearer in hindsight.
10:45What the movie most concerns itself with is toxic masculinity,
10:49as represented by Scali and the Bay Boys,
10:51and former Doctor Doom Julian McMahon
10:54nicely underplays his menace behind a slimy smile.
10:57Scali is an old acquaintance of the surfers,
11:00and has clearly never grown out of being a bully.
11:03He's just become a professional at it.
11:05He's now a financial shark,
11:07boasting about how his business strategy
11:09is to pull apart and destroy all that he acquires.
11:13Exactly the tactics he engineers on the surfer,
11:16and he clearly relishes domination.
11:19And the scenes with Cage and McMahon are easily the film's best,
11:22as the two men butt heads,
11:24and Cage is trying to save face,
11:27and is most connected with its themes.
11:29Even the moments where Scali feigns generosity,
11:32like offering much needed food and drink,
11:34are all part of his game.
11:36If the surfer takes it, he submits to him.
11:39And if he doesn't, the surfer is hazed even more.
11:43It's all about control.
11:45Scali talks about how men these days are all soft.
11:48What they need to do is to give in to their primal instincts,
11:52so you know exactly what kind of man he is.
11:55But he has the money and the power that the locals don't just look away at Scali and his boy's behaviour,
12:01they're actively complicit in it, and even condone it.
12:04After all, he is the gatekeeper of the ways,
12:07keeping the outsiders out,
12:09or the riffraff as they're referred to,
12:12with the implications being pretty obvious.
12:15And his dark charisma means that he's effectively surround himself with a cult,
12:19as his bayboys brand themselves and chant the mantra,
12:23SURFER SUFFER SURFER SURFER SURFER SURFER SURFER
12:27effectively brainwashed to believe that pain, violence, and cruelty are what defines masculinity.
12:34This isn't simply primal, it's barbaric tribalism.
12:39It's these ideas that come to the forefront in the final section,
12:41as the film plays with the expectations of the revenge movie.
12:45Normally in a film like this, where a character is pushed to breaking point and left with nothing,
12:50you expect them to righteously use force to reassert themselves,
12:54like Charles Bronson in Death Wish. There's a literal Chekhov's gun in play,
12:59so you know that someone has to use it at some point.
13:02But the movie's conclusion allows itself to both subvert the expectation of that,
13:07while still indulging in the audience's desire for retribution in some way,
13:11which has its cake and eats it somewhat, or rat in this case.
13:17But the final images are also quite haunting in their destruction.
13:21All the imagery and the themes suddenly coalesce, and you realise,
13:26oh, that's why that was there.
13:29But you have to put a lot of patience in to get to the crest of that wave.
13:34The Surfer is a flawed film, but an ambitious one that asks questions about whether what we desire
13:39is truly what we want, and what it means to be a man.
13:42And Nicolas Cage is giving his all, as always.
13:46But it is definitely a film that's going to be off-putting to some people,
13:49because it puts them through so much discomfort that they might struggle to stick with it,
13:54especially in that middle section.
13:56However, there is a part of me that wonders how well the film will play on a second viewing,
14:01with a clearer sense of where it's heading and what it's trying to do,
14:04and whether it will feel more cohesive and actually improve it.
14:08It's such a strange idiosyncratic movie that it feels like it's destined to the vapor cult following,
14:14and not just purely because of Cage's presence.
14:16But whether you like it or hate it, you'll probably agree, it isn't about surfing.
14:22If you like this review and you want to support my work, you can give me a tip at my Ko-fi page,
14:26or a YouTube Super Thanks feature which is right below the video.
14:30Or you can ride the waves at my Patreon, where you can see my videos early among other perks,
14:34including access to my Discord server, and you can also join YouTube memberships for similar perks.
14:39Or you can just simply like, share and subscribe, it genuinely does help.
14:43Until next time, I'm Matthew Buck, feeding out.
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