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Those who saw the bloody, bearded, grizzled Nicolas Cage in the first trailer for “Pig” may have made a lot of false assumptions about the movie – like that at any point Cage was going crazy and mowing a room full of people. in search of his precious kidnapped truffle pig. Many netizens quickly likened the trailer to action epics like “John Wick” or “Taken“, and we at TheWrap even dubbed the movie a” revenge thriller. “
But it turns out that Cage never really goes; his performance is one of his most sober and complex in years. And the film itself is much more meditative, thoughtful, deep, and elegant than you might expect.
In fact, as the film’s co-writer Vanessa Block told TheWrap, she never seen “John Wick” and the Keanu Reeves films certainly never served as a point of reference. She and director Michael Sarnoski even worked closely with Neon to shape the content for the first trailer, which they said was “precise enough” to capture the flirty, iconic tone of the film.
What was surprising is that by the time that door is pushed in, the hypothesis becomes ‘John Wick with a pig’, even though the clips that follow in the trailer are quite meditative, sensitive and sweet. . It’s almost been this anthropological study of people’s relationship to movies to see how they reacted, “Block told TheWrap.” I’m sure there’s a certain degree of fulfillment of the wishes of people watching. trailer who want to see the “Cage Rage” and are denied that. We were curious how people would react to the denial, and somehow the denial opened them up to something much deeper.
Block said “Pig” was inspired by an image of a man in a secluded house sitting on a porch with a shotgun as he protected his truffle pig and dog. And of course, Cage in the film plays Rob, a hermit who has abandoned society and lives as a truffle hunter with his pet pig.
“We thought this image was so sad, sweet and endearing that it became the core of the film, which quickly evolved into something much deeper – a story that is truly a mediation of shared loss and trauma.” Block said.
When a group of junkies surprises Rob and kidnaps his pig, he goes on a quest in downtown Portland to find the animal. Along the way, the film reveals that he was once a renowned chef and that being out of the public eye only increased his legend. On his journey, he travels through a sort of underground world of Portland cuisine, encountering unusual fight clubs or future mafia bosses who control the ins and outs of the city’s most rarefied restaurants.
Block and Sarnoski spent weeks researching real Portland locations and developing a vision for “Pig” before he even got funding, all with the intention of making the film a “letter from”. love “for the city. They even turned inside the Huber’s, one of Portland’s oldest restaurants dating back to the 19th century. So even though “Pig” isn’t exactly “John Wick”, it does contain some genre elements that make it all look like a fable with mythical and magical qualities in every location.
“We wanted all of the characters that existed at each of these crossroads to feel like guardians of larger realms. There is real fable magic in the journey, and having ‘genre’ moments increases and allows us to convey that feeling, and what gets interesting is the subversion as we go through it. Block explained. “This fable, the mythical quality of the film can only work on the tone because we marry it with something very grounded in the reality of the place of Portland.”
Of course, if anyone still thought “Pig” was a gonzo action movie like “John Wick”, it’s probably because Cage is playing the lead role. Block said the actor got hooked early on in the process and often referred to “Pig” as a “symphonic poem” or “haiku.” And rather than molding Rob’s character to Cage, he “fitted in perfectly” with Block and Sarnoski’s vision and helped them overturn expectations in the right way.
“With the way we used the genre to make the film more magical, Nic sums it up so well. It’s a very introspective, understated and silent performance, ”said Block. “Having an actor like Nic who exists at this level of mythical proportions gives him the electricity he needs to truly thrive.”
Neon’s “Pig” is now in theaters.
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