PIG (2021, dir by Michael Sarnoski): An Appreciation, a 2021 appraisal, and a 2022 advance prologue by Craig Hammill

Last night, I realized I had not seen nearly enough new 2021 movies.

So I planted myself down in our family lazy boy at 10pm, looked at my list of movies I wanted to catch up on, and watched Pig, the indescribably funny, wise, emotional, and moving comedy drama starring Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, co-written and directed by Michael Sarnoski.

Pig is an excellent movie. There were a few moments I thought its die-hard commitment to its idiosynchratic tone may have been a bit much-there’s a subterranean Fight Club of Portland, Oregon Restauranteurs-but it never fell off the tightrope. And the ending packs such a rewarding emotional punch that any quibbles are just that. . .minor. The whole thing works from start to finish.

Which is a kind of miracle unto itself.

Pig has a logline that sounds like some kind of John Wick in-joke. Shadowy figures steal Oregon forest recluse Nicolas Cage’s beloved pet truffle pig; he drafts his young hipster truffle wholesaler (played in a performance that packs a punch by Hereditary’s Alex Wolff) to take him back to the city to find the animal.

Pig’s strength is that it constantly defies and surpasses your expectation of where it will go. Everytime you think you’re gonna get vintage Cage rage, you instead get the best AND most restrained Nicolas Cage performance in recent times (and he’s been giving some showstoppers the past few years). Cage makes this amazing decision to make an art of calming down.

Cage advances in his odyssey NOT BY scaring or beating up people but by reasoning with them. By being vulnerable. By being honest. It’s one of his most surprising acting choices ever.

The movie is a very mordant comedy (almost every scene has a great comedic choice that never overpowers the underlying emotion and drama) that nevertheless earns its tear-inducing ending.

And I say tear-inducing because it made me cry.

There’s a late movie performance by Adam Arkin that is as powerful (and necessary) as the performances from the two leads. And the whole movie glows with the patina of an Oregon sunset or sunrise (the cinematogrpahy by Patrick Scola is yet another example of the new wave of cinematographers advancing the art of digital photography).

Pig may not be a capital G great movie in the end. There are a few moments (but blessedly few) where things feel a bit too precious or formally conceived (the movie is divided into three parts each named after a culinary dish). But it is a capital E excellent movie that finds everyone involved hitting career peaks and delivering the emotion.

Most important, it lets you know cinema is alive and kicking and there are people involved in making movies committed to seeing it thrive and come through.

When I finished Pig, I reviewed all the 2021 movies I still need to see-Licorice Pizza, West Side Story, Titane, Annette, The Tragedy of MacBeth, Drive My Car-just to name a few. And even though we’ve lurched into yet another rough patch with the explosion of the omicron variant, we’re in an undeniably better place than we were in December 2020.

Movie theaters are mostly open. Movie production is back at impressive highs. And while the future is almost certainly going to be bumpy, the turbulence should clear in the next few years and a new handful of amazing filmmakers should rise to be the storytellers and chroniclers of the moment.

It’s an exciting time to be in cinema. You just have to be willing to take a beating across multiple rounds and go the full twelve.

As one is wont to do on the eve of one year before the dawn of the next, it feels right to flex those “magical if” muscles and look into the milky fog of the 2022 crystal ball.

What I see is probably another tough year for a whole variety of reasons. In fact, I have a feeling it’s going to be a tough decade. So my first thought is it’s going to be a slog and hard work and a fight. Just like it’s been the past few years.

But I also see tremendous opportunity for those who can stick it out and stay standing and move forward. I’m not quite sure yet how one can magically blend the new technologies-Tik Tok, social media, streaming-with the best qualities of the older technologies-cinema, film, the movie theater-but I sense there is a partnership to be had there. I sense we’re about to get a whole bunch of moviemakers who will show us how it’s done.

I also sense there’s the opportunity and potential for another American renaissance in film and moviemaking.

I hesitate to prognosticate much beyond that. As Goethe once said, “ Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” I saw that gem as a computer screensaver once. But hell, it’s profound to me.

Or maybe put another way, the person you can most affect is yourself. So you might as well be the change you want to see in the world.

2022 is going to be a strange, interesting year. But it may also be the year the movie came roaring back.

The power of cinema and storytelling is eternal.

Let’s get to work.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.