Nicolas Cage loses it again in a sun scorched arena of toxic masculinity whose reach ultimately exceeds its grasp.
The latest from Lorcan Finnegan of Vivarium fame is a similar attempt at the kind of lab rat experiment that made his previous work so jarringly effective. Only The Surfer’s overarching themes of toxic masculinity are nonsensically hammered home in a way that instead of feeling profound end up feeling silly and underdeveloped.
We follow the title protagonist of the surfer (Nicolas Cage) as he optimistically explains to his son (Finn Little given nothing to do) that he’s buying his old family home in Australia. They can go surfing on his beloved beach he used to frequent and there’s a sense of achievement emanating from him at the new chapter. Only an aggressive group of men have taken the spot as their own along with the phrase and strict ruling “Don’t live here, don’t surf here.”. Even when the surfer explains he grew up next to the beach it’s to no avail and he’s violently dealt with. Led by influencer type guru Scally (Julian McMahon) he’s told to leave and never come back. Thus ensues a maddening stand-oF of male egos and stubbornness as the surfer refuses to leave the car park above the beach, setting oF a chain of events that grind him down to nothing.
The film is constructed to make the audience feel as claustrophobic as possible in an area often aligned with expansiveness and it mostly achieves this. The car park and small beach area the surfer is allowed in seemingly by the rules of the film are constricting and the raising amount of bad luck is amusing for a while at least. Finnegan knows how to create an uncomfortable atmosphere, but he doesn’t fully commit here. The problem is, the stakes never feel real, we’re asked to suspend our disbelief for the entire time which ends up making everything that happens seem overly metaphorical and like we’re in some sort of fever dream. This could have perhaps worked if these scenes inhabited part of the film but to make up a whole narrative around something so allegorical seems like cheating.
Cage is fine as the surfer and he gives it his usual welly, but we’re only given snippets of his character and it’s very hard to feel any sort of care towards him. We get brief context that his wife’s left him and he’s using the house as a sort of dream scenario that will repair his former glories and broken family. If this was given any more weight it might’ve added some muchneeded pathos, but it’s merely swept aside to continue in the pandemonium.
Masculinity lies at the heart of the surfer; egos can kill and the perception of a way to behave from certain societal gender roles wipes away anyone who challenges that assumption. It’s an important point to play with, it just feels like it’s riding a familiar riptide.
Seen on 29/04/25 at Rich Mix as part of cinema “escapes” a service funded by the BFI and national lottery giving out free cinema tickets - an excellent cause and something I use often.
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