The Surfer (2024) - Descent into Beach Hell Story - REVIEW

Recently had the chance to get invited for a local screening of The Surfer (2024), its the second time in my life I had to chance to watch a movie officially this early although its not a "new" movie since its been around for quite a while on different festivals, this is a kinda crazy movie starring Nicholas Cage and this ain't your typical beach movie with cool guys surfing and hot babes tanning under the sun, this is a full blown psychological mind trip that will leave you questioning reality just as much as the main character does during the entire story. The movie directed by Loren Finnegan who not many know but I remember watching a movie of his Vivarium in 2019. The movie develop on the beautiful shores of Western Australia where Cage plays the role of a nameless character simply called as "the surfer" a technique often use by directors to make the movie way more simple and focus the audience attention into other aspects.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27813235/

Rottentomatoes Rating

The Surfer returns to his childhood beach with his teenage son to both surf and potentially buy back his family home that has direct access to this surfing spot, a movie that sounds very simple at first until everything goes south, because as soon as they try to hit the waters they are bully by a group of aggressive locals led by a cult like character named Scally who basically tell him "Don't live here, don't surf here" and straight up stop him and his son to enjoy the beach that once saw him growing up, see there are many things going on with him that makes this more than buying a house, he is under so much pressure from his divorce, work, personal projects failing that he is fixed into buying this house as a beacon to a new start.

The Surfer takes his son back home and then returns but refuses to leave and ends up stuck in a parking lot overlooking the beach for what seems like days, his appearance deteriorating from a suited businessman to a complete wreck as he faces bullying, dehydration and increasingly bizarre situations that blur the line between reality and hallucination, the whole movie has this retro 70s vibe with vibrant colors and a dreamlike situation that makes you feel just as disoriented as the main character and Cage delivers exactly the kind of committed, a total transformation of the character going from a some what happy man with high hopes to fix his life to completely unhinged showing a total mental breakdown. The movie mostly takes place in this parking lot overlooking the beach, I can say this movie is not for everyone but for fans of Cage very similar to another of his great movies 8MM, the movie that made me fall in love with his work, its about his ability to go mad as only he can, very similar to his latest hit from last year Long Legs (2024).

The hole beach situation might sound boring but actually creates this claustrophobic feeling that adds to the psychological horror, we watch as Cage's character slowly loses everything, his car battery dies, his phone runs out of charge, his appearance becomes more chaotic and start to gets off rails of reality every hour he stays under the Australian sun. I think its here where the movie starts to decline when there is this homeless guy who might be what will The Surfer become, this guy who is living on an abandon car also mention how the "Bad Boys" referring to the guys who confronted the Surfer at first; they killed his son and dog so he stay and has a grudge against this guys.

The movie has a couple of heavy themes at hands like toxic masculinity, bullying, obsession, materialism and the desperate need to reclaim something from your past even if it destroys your present, the Bay Boys themselves are a group developed as this weird cult with their own rituals and branding, led by Scally character who wears this ridiculous red robe and preaches about masculinity and territory, they're basically the worst kind of locals you could imagine encountering at any beach, the kind that make you never want to visit a place no matter where it is, really reminds me of those old surfing movies in Hawai with this locals not letting outsiders surf at certain beaches.

What really makes The Surfer stand out is how it plays with your perception of reality, there are moments where you genuinely don't know if what you're seeing is actually happening or if it's all in Cage's increasingly derail mind, there's a scene involving a dead rat that is both disgusting and hilarious in that special Nicholas Cage way and the movie is not shy from showing the grotesque, its a scene where Cage character finally loose it during a fight with one of the locals, Pitbull; he takes a rat and force him to try to eat it. After doing some research about why this movie was created in first place it seems that Cage hold to a rat prop for weeks after having the idea on his head and wait to improvise the scene, it was not part of the script and I only wonder how the production and actors go with Cage flow when it comes to scenes like this where only him knows whats going on, Cage take the wheell!!!

I consider the ending itself is unexpected but fitting, leaving some ambiguity while still providing a sense of closure to this bizarre journey, it's definitely not a movie for everyone as I mention above. Its a really weird one just as my psychological horror drama taste for movies, at the end The Surfer never achieve anything rather than escaping, it was the homeless guy who fullfil his revenge when he kills one of the Bad Boys with a gun the Surfer previously found but never make it work. This is not a straightforward beach movie, its a very confusing one because at times even after the movie I'm not so sure if some of the scenes where just the Surfer's imagination, for example when he and his son went off paddling into the ocean at the end of the movie, for sure the homeless guy killed Scaly and then himself but paddling into the horizon??

In conclusion, The Surfer is another solid entry in Nicholas Cage's recent crqzy and chaotic deteriorating characters where he has basically become a master out of this unique niche, one can say the king of bizarre psychological thrillers but 80% of them are not for everyone, still a sub genre of horror that can actually still have a large audience but not you average go to the cinema audience. The movie also has an authentic Australian feel with local slang and atmosphere that adds to its credibility, despite the surreal nature of the story, the movie was actually filmed in less than a month between October and November 2023, this is pretty impressive although is the kind of movie develop around a small space with very few locations and not many sidestories, this is why the movie is just so focus on the Surfer and everything that goes one at the beach. At the end what makes the movie works very well is that it doesn't hide been weird AF and fully embrace it developing a full transformation of the main character across the entire story.

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