Glasgow Film Festival 2025: THE SURFER

Whenever Nic Cage is cast in a movie, you have to wonder if the script was written with him in mind. It’s hard to think of an another actor so singular in his approach, so solidly in charge of his niche, so synonymous with a certain type of personality, that when you see him cast in a movie you immediately have an assumption about the type of movie it will be and the type of character he will play – and usually be correct in your assumptions. It is therefore, you would imagine, an inescapable reality for directors considering casting him. Cage has been able to parlay this fact into a very successful career, both leaning into and subverting those expectations. For every Pig (and if we’re honest there is really only one Pig) there are multiple Willy’s Wonderlands. Lately in his career Cage has leaned more heavily into the arthouse scene, anchoring movies such as Longlegs (in which he plays an unhinged serial killer), Dream Scenario (in which he inexplicably appears in the dreams of the world populace and becomes famous overnight), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (in which he plays, well, himself). It feels at times almost like a wink and a nudge at the audience: Cage knows how he is perceived, and he’s going to give you exactly what you want.

Finnegan’s Wakeboard

Teaming up with Irish director Lorcan Finnegan feels like a great fit for Cage, in the same way that teaming with Sion Sono did, but for slightly different reasons. Sono‘s idiosyncratic style goes hand in glove with Cage‘s, the same way as Finnegan‘s eccentric, dreamlike approach does. So, then, The Surfer feels like a natural fit for both men, and what follows is – for better or worse – pretty much exactly what you would assume from Cage.

The Surfer opens with a monologue from Cage‘s nameless protagonist (known only as The Surfer) about surfing-as-a-metaphor-for-life. It’s the kind of existential, reflective monologue Cage could do in his sleep now, and is humorously acknowledged by The Surfer himself as a good speech.

It’s clear from the outset The Surfer is well off. From his clothes to his car to his watch, he is a wealthy man with a busy life, and is in the middle of negotiations to purchase his childhood home, right on the beachfront. He’s taking the day off from said busy life to spend time surfing with him son The Kid (Finn Little) in the same area as his potential new home. However, he encounters hostility from territorial surfers who insist the beach is only available to those who already live in the area.

Humiliated in front of his son by these surfers, The Surfer himself becomes determined to hit the waves at any and all costs, triggering an increasingly bizarre cat-and-mouse game of psychological warfare, which will push The Surfer to the very edges of his sanity, and perhaps beyond.

The Australian Dream?

Similar to his earlier – and even more bizarre – work Vivarium, Finnegan’s take on The Surfer plays as a deconstruction of The American Dream (or whatever its Antipodean counterparts may call it). The Surfer himself has all the trappings of success, but slowly throughout his ordeal each of the possessions which you suspect define him are taken away – his beautiful Lexus mysteriously disappears to be replaced by a rundown jalopy, which he is gaslit by the locals into believing was always his; his Rolex watch traded away for a phone call he doesn’t get to make; his shoes, his surfboard, his home. Everything is stripped from him and we in the audience are left to wonder if he ever really had those things to begin with. Its commentary on the ephemeral nature of material success, wealth in this case, may literally be an illusion.

One might expect a certain tone of violence to perforate The Surfer – surely this can only end in bloodshed, in death and destruction. Instead, what we experience through the majority of its runtime is the psychological breakdown of The Surfer himself. Sunburnt, dehydrated and starving, pushed to the very brink of desperation – one memorable scene sees him debating eating a rat for sustenance – The Surfer goes through a complete transformation of self. You may naturally assume you know where this is going – you’ve seen Cage‘s work, after all. There will be violence. And there is a denouement of a kind, but not the one you’re expecting.

You see, it turns out Cage has a few surprises still left in him. Because this is not the Cage you assume, not exactly. Your mileage may vary depending on your expectations – again, another issue with casting Cage – because The Surfer has slightly more in common with the reflective meditations of Pig than it does the bombastic explosions of Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Bone Dust and Bodhi

Finnegan makes good use of his Australian location. Each scene is bone-dry and burnt-out. Vivid golden colours wash the screen completely, so you can practically feel the oppressive sun beating down on the inhabitants, and nowhere else is this more evident that in The Surfer himself, slowly turning a brighter and brighter shade of eye-searing red, making you worry that if the surfers don’t get to him, the skin cancer surely will. The cinematography uses the minimal location (the majority of the movie takes place in a car park) to suggest an otherworldly quality, tight frames and unusual angles set up to disorient the audience in the same way The Surfer himself comes completely undone.

And then there’s Cage himself. Although others get a few scenes – chief among them Julian McMahon‘s sinister Bodhi-esque surfer leader Scally – this is Cage‘s movie. This is why he was cast, because few actors could carry a performance of this quality, of a man completely unravelling past the point of recognition. Despite plot holes you could drive a bus through (he stays in the car park for days even as he is completely falling apart from exhaustion. Why isn’t he simply going home?) and a backstory you never quite buy (he retains his American accent and a tortured piece of dialogue explains that he moved to America when he was young and has now moved back home), Cage‘s performance is, of course, riveting. He is somehow incapable of giving a wallflower performance, never less than utterly compelling every time he’s on screen. The Surfer never quite finds its footing, between a gossamer thin plot and setup, increasingly implausible circumstances, and a lacklustre finale that feels mildly insulting given all that’s come before, but with Cage leading the front it just about pulls through. Perhaps, in the end, this is why scripts are written for Cage: he, and he alone, seems capable of harnessing his unique star power to pull a middling movie into something of value purely by his performance. That’s worth the price of admission.

Conclusion

Despite being a somewhat mediocre offering, Cage‘s performance elevates The Surfer beyond its potential, and proves he still has the star power in spades to bring anything to life. If The Surfer ever lives long in the memory of cinema goers, it’ll be for his unhinged performance, and the hard-to-forget imagine of a dead rat that was very nearly Cage‘s dinner.

The Surfer screened as part of The Glasgow Film Festival 2025.