Star in 1990 with “Sailor and Lula”, lost in forgotten turnips in the 2010s, Nicolas Cage bounces back again with “The Surfer”, a B series which has everything to become cult, presented at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Come on, come on!” jubilated the actor when the film team received a six-minute standing ovation after its screening, out of competition, on the night of Friday to Saturday.
“We finished the film last week, receiving this standing ovation was unexpected and perfect. Before that, only six people had seen it in small parts,” rejoices Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (“Vivarium”) met on Saturday by AFP.
American actor Nicolas Cage arrives for the screening of the film “The Surfer”, May 18, 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival / Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP
The Cannes public reacted quickly by encouraging the main character – who has no name – when he does the punch. The story is basic on paper: a father wants to show his son the beach where he surfed as a kid in Australia before leaving to live in the USA. But he falls into the trap of a gang of surfers led by a masculinist guru.
On top of this minimalist, 100% B-movie script is grafted a biblical parable, with a villain that Lorcan Finnegan describes as “a Christ-like demon” and Nicolas Cage plunged into a “purgatory” under the blazing sun of Australian Christmas Eve.
Bitten by a snake
Without forgetting the performance blurring the line between delirium tremens and reality of the interpreter of “Cotton club” (1984) by his uncle Francis Ford Coppola, also present in Cannes.
The 60-year-old American paid for himself on “The Surfer” in Australia, chosen for its more hostile environment than California. +Nic+ Cage was thus “bitten to blood on the hand by a snake, not venomous, which we did not find active enough for the scene”, laughs Lorcan Finnegan.
“The filming location was good, there was no one, which means that… no one could come and save us quickly, even though we had an application to monitor the presence and number of sharks.”
American actor Nicolas Cage (L) and Australian actor Justin Rosniak (R) arrive for the screening of the film “The Surfer”, May 18, 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival / Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP
The actor is inhabited, a bit like in “An Open Tomb” by Martin Scorsese (1999), the end of a golden decade opened by “Sailor and Lula”, by David Lynch, awarded a Palme d’Or at Cannes.
The 2000s and especially 2010 saw him accept soulless productions to pay off the debts from his boom years (cars, yachts, island…).
“Such shit”
“Do you remember +Bangkok Dangerous+? +The Last of the Templars+? +Hell Driver 3D+? +The Pact+? +Effraction+? Of course not! Who will remember such crap?”, he blurted out in the French newspaper Le World in 2014.
The 2020s started with the extravagant “Pig” (2021), the story of a kidnapped truffle pig, well received by critics. Upon receiving the script for “The Surfer”, “+Nic+ was more than an actor, a collaborator, he brought a way of placing the lines, changed little things and we gave him room to improvise” . A cult scene and line with an animal, which we do not reveal, come from the actor.
American actor Nicolas Cage, May 17, 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival / CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
“+Nic+ was incredibly prepared, he knew all his dialogues, he has crazy energy, he quickly enters the scene, 2-3 takes and we move forward, between takes he hangs out on the set on a chair rather than in his trailer -loge, like an indie film director-actor,” describes Lorcan Finnegan.
We must also salute the performance of Julian McMahon, an Australian seen in the “Fantastic 4” franchise or the “Nip/Tuck” series. He is the leader of the unhealthy surfers, with a smile that looks like that of a shark. A character inspired by the American star podcaster Joe Rogan, a former kickboxer regularly accused of relaying conspiracy theories.
