Movie Scene: Surf’s Up!

In the weird and wonderful annals of Nicholas Cage’s career, he’s a man who has definitely drifted towards the ‘weird’ aspects in recent years. The latest film for the crazy column is ‘The Surfer’, an Australian/Irish production which received a standing ovation at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film opens with an unnamed protagonist (Cage) and his son arriving at an Australian beach, also unnamed.

Cage’s character grew up there, left for America and is now back and on the verge of buying his childhood home.

As the pair attempt to surf, they’re booted off the beach by a group of violent locals, led by Scally (Julian McMahon) because ‘only locals can surf that beach’. The boy leaves but the man stays, determined to actually surf.

On the face of it, ‘The Surfer’ may not sound like much but, believe me, it is, as this psycho-thriller sees one man’s descent into madness while dealing with the cult of toxic masculinity. Irish directing/writing duo Lorcan Finnegan and Thomas Martin initially wanted an Australian but settled on an American in order to fully embody the ‘outsider’ tag and they hit the jackpot with Cage.

The veteran actor gives a brilliantly unhinged performance as ‘the man’, starting off fairly mild-mannered and quiet before showing flashes of the Cage kookiness we all know and love, mixed with moments of fear, explosive emotion and downright desperation with each passing moment.

His foe is the shamanic Scally – equal parts Andrew Tate, Colonel Kurtz and Lord Summerisle, chief of his kingdom. McMahon, best known around these parts for ‘Home & Away’, ‘Nip/Tuck’ and ‘Fantastic Four’, is also brilliant as the pair go toe-to-toe in their confrontations.

Martin’s script puts Cage’s character through all manner of indignities… if he isn’t having his property stolen or getting heckled by locals and the police, he also has to contend with the prospect of losing the house he wants and also dealing with an estranged wife he’s already lost and a strange homeless man who, may or may not, be real.

Along with the toxic masculinity angle, there is also an element of rebirth to ‘The Surfer’, putting Cage through all of this to help the character shed his old life.

However, he is sometimes left to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Helping enhance this feeling of madness and desperation is Finnegan’s excellent direction and Radoslaw Ladczuk’s cinematography, which is full of disorienting close-ups and a woozy, fever dream, almost supernatural element to the man’s mental state, incorporating elements of ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’ and ‘Walkabout’ in its execution.

When all is said and done, the lack of a ‘bombast’ conclusion might irk some people into thinking, “Is that it?” Admittedly, ‘The Surfer’ may not be perfect but as a bold and original film anchored by two great central performances, it’s worth riding the wave.