The Surfer (15) |Close-Up Film Review
Dir: Lorcan Finnegan, Australia/US/Ireland/UK, 2024, 100 mins
Cast: Nicholas Cage, Finn Little, Julian McMahon
Review by .Carol Allen
Martin has though said in interviews that he is drawn to Australia as place to explore extreme frontiers. And both the story and Cage in the lead role certainly go to extremes.
It’s also one of those films where the characters are identified rather pretentiously by their function rather than having a name. The Surfer (Cage), a middle aged man, born in Australia but raised in the States, has a compulsion to return to the surfing beach of his childhood, bringing with him his teenage son, known to us just as The Kid (Finn Little). The Surfer’s also planning to buy the house overlooking the beach. But the local surfer bully boys won’t admit this outsider. This is their territory and theirs alone. The Surfer however won’t give up, and they more they bully him, mock him, beat him up, steal his surf board and his car, the more he refuses to leave the beach, determined on staying and fighting and defying them, until he is reduced over days and nights to a gibbering wreck, still insanely intent on riding those waves from this particular beach.
The Kid decamps to go stay with his mum fairly early on, not returning until near the end of the film, which is a pity as Little is rather good. And it would have been interesting to explore that father son relationship in more detail. But this is a film about male machismo, a not uncommon characteristic in certain areas of society, particularly Australia, and not the continent’s most attractive characteristic. The local guys who persecute poor old Surfer are horrendous, beating him up while their big gobs hang open in mocking laughter. Even the local cop joins in. The leader of the yobs, Scally (Julian McMahon), opens his big mouth so wide in mocking laughter as he puts the boot in that you can practically see his tonsils. And the estate agent who’s supposed to be selling Surfer that beach house behaves in a most unprofessional manner.
To give the film its due, it looks gorgeous – one of the attractions of shooting down under. Cage has given tortured performances before and this is another one of them, as he disintegrates impressively from a somewhat uptight but reasonably normal human being into a gibbering wreck. You do feel sorry for him, but common sense does raise the question, why not go find another beach? Apart from a few small roles there are no significant women in the story, so it’s a relief that a film about machismo restricts its violence to men only. But sorry though one feels for the poor suffering Surfer, it does get both unbelievable and sadly somewhat tedious. The short sequences of surfing look good however. Could have done with more of those.
