Australian thrillers experienced a wave of Hollywood popularity in recent years, mostly due to the films of David Michod (The Rover, Animal Kingdom) and John Hillcoat (The Proposition) that explored Aussie culture and masculinity. You can now add Lorcan Finnegan’s unusual, trippy thriller The Surfer into that mix, even though it stars someone who is distinctly American, Nicolas Cage, as an Aussie native attempting to come home again and finding that the locals aren’t so welcoming to outsiders.
The casting of Cage in The Surfer is a stroke of genius. He doesn’t attempt an Australian accent or anything like that. He doesn’t give off the edgy machismo that is such a part of the stereotypical Aussie male portrayal on the big screen. His character, regarded simply as the Surfer, has been away so long he’s shed any traces of upbringing and is fully a California man. A dubious businessman and earnest father, he returns to the idyllic Australian beach of his youth to reconnect with his son (Finn Little), to buy his childhood home, and to surf the waves he loved so much. But when he tries to take the kid out to the water, he finds a local surf gang led by Scally (Julian McMahon, looking like a red-faced demon), who tell him that locals aren’t welcome. The man tries to appeal to them that he’s from the area, but the gang, which is really more of a surf cult, doesn’t give a damn. They’re all pretty big, too, and the threat of violence is clear.
The Surfer is about how quickly we can lose the artificial things that seem important, but really aren’t. For some, this can be a pathway towards freedom and a more meaningful life. For others, it can also lead to a loss of sanity. Cage’s character is humiliated, emotionally tortured, lied to, and made to feel like a loser by nearly everyone he encounters. Along the way he loses his Lexus, his fancy watch, his expensive sunglasses, his money, until he’s left alone and broken down, bleeding, and looking worse than the local bum, also a target of the surf cult. The only person who shows him any affection is an Aboriginal woman, a photographer (played by The Sapphires’ Miranda Tapsell) who bonds with him over their creative ventures. The protagonist was once a writer for surf magazines, and recalls fondly when he used to travel the globe surfing the waves, living out of his car eating cans of beans. It’s almost like, free of the luxuries he has now, he was a much happier person.
So while the first half of The Surfer might have you believe it’s leading to Cage having a Falling Down-style breakdown and rampage, the second half veers into the psychedelic with freaky visuals by DP Radzek Ladczuk. It becomes unclear how much of what happening is real, and how much is a figment of the Surfer’s shattered psyche. The film is mostly set in one location, the beach and a nearby parking lot, so the change in style to something closer to the paranormal is a nice touch. I would say this part of the film goes offcourse and is less interesting, mainly because it loses so much of the masculine tension between Cage and McMahon’s characters. Their rivalry was so clearly defined and understandable, with the two actors having remarkable antagonistic chemistry, that the shift just can’t measure up. But The Surfer is compelling and unpredictable, and maybe the weirdest surfing film in years.
The Surfer is open in theaters now via Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate.
