The Surfer review: Nic Cage craves the waves as locals rage

It’s an ongoing source of ire for Australian cinema-goers that buzzy titles berthed in international film festivals often take an age to wash up onshore here. That waiting game seems particularly cruel when the film is shot and set here.

From the moment it was announced Nic Cage would play one of us (?!?) returning to his coastal hometown in WA after an extended stint in the US but falling foul of the locals, the hunger unleashed was like sharks to blood in the water. Particularly given Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) and his Dublin neighbour, screenwriter Thomas Martin, bandied around comparisons to Wake in Fright, that other great Australian assault on outsiders, as directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff.

Watch The Surfer trailer.

Debuting almost a year ago to the day at the Cannes Film Festival, The Surfer finally hits Australian cinemas this week. Distributed locally by Madman with Stan snapping up the streaming rights, you might also recognise, in the Irish outlook on aggro Aussies, a touch of the latter’s Jamie Dornan-led hit The Tourist. But was it worth the inordinate wait?

The Surfer: surf’s up

Much has been made of Cage’s career being caught in a wild rip since winning an Oscar for his performance as a down and ready-to-check-out screenwriter in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). In truth, he’s always been up for gnarly turns.

His big breakthrough, Martha Coolidge’s Valley Girl (1983), might have been a teen rom-com based on Romeo and Juliet, but he plays a punk to Deborah Foreman’s nice girl. There’s his wannabe gangster in Uncle Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984), a fang-obsessed yuppie in Vampire’s Kiss (1988), a baby-kidnapping ex-con in the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona (1987) and another outlaw on the run in David Lynch’s Palme d’Or-winning Wild at Heart (1990).

It’s fair to say, however, that things have escalated in recent years. Particularly since the blood-drenched mania of Canadian director Panos Cosmatos’ hyper-stylised revenge thriller, Mandy (2018). So much so that folks go into a Cage joint expecting him to fly into an uncontrollable rage. An expectation Michael Sarnoski pulled the rug out from underneath with his excellent Pig (2021), casting Cage as a truffle hunter determined to rescue his stolen sow.

So does The Surfer ride the wave of mayhem or not?

The answer lies in agitating anticipation. As the unnamed surfer of the title, Cage’s vibrantly dyed ginger lead plays a man determined to reclaim his roots after decades away in California, where his accent presumably got lost. Wanting to reconnect with his teenage son (Finn Little) – despite his ex-wife (on the phone) being pissed he pulled him out of school – he hopes to snap up his childhood home, newly on the market.

But the surfer falls foul of the overheated Australian market, forced to beg for more financing with Rahel Romahn’s real estate shark unwilling to buy him time.

Hoping to hang ten with the kid while things fall into place, instead he’s harangued by Alexander Bertrand’s boofhead. ‘Don’t live here. Don’t surf here.’

Apparently, there’s a statute of limitations on being a local. Don’t use it, you lose it. A fact further exacerbated by The Residence actor Julian McMahon’s big bad toxic boss of the beach, Scally, who’s giving Andrew Tate man-o-sphere manipulator vibes only vaguely masked by his Insta-hippie woo-woo.

Glowering from under a Santa-like oodie – it’s nearly Christmas – this menace oozes the Australian understanding of c*nt/mate when he snarls ‘I’m trying to do you a solid here’.

The Surfer: time and tide

Patience is required in Finnegan’s deliberately paced freak-out. ‘It’s pure energy born in a storm way out to sea,’ the surfer says, unseen, in an ominously portentous opening monologue. ‘A short, sharp shock of violence on the shore … You either surf it or you get wiped out.’

This saltiness is immediately undercut by the surfer himself: ‘That was my best surfing as a metaphor for life speech,’ he sighs to his son. ‘I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm.’

Increasingly convinced his stolen board has been seized for signage on the surf shack, despite a smarmy local cop (Justin Rosniak) insisting it was always there, the surfer obsesses. Tormented not by mythological eagles picking at his liver, instead he’s slowly cooked.

As his fancy Lexus, smartphone and watch are dispensed with one by one, he’s forced to drink rank tap water from the public dunny and a puddle. Skin blistering, his clean-cut looks retreat as the rats begin to look like lunch.

Is he his father’s son, with tragedy hinted at in flashback? Or a broken mirror reflecting the fate of another unkempt guy (Nicholas Cassim) living out of his brick-stacked wheels in this scorched beachside car park? The one who dubs him ‘Seppo,’ as in septic tank AKA Yank. Just another refutation of his ‘local’ claim.

Top End Wedding star Miranda Tapsell’s photographer is one of the few folks willing to assist, though not without obvious concern for her well-being. Otherwise, coffee cart owners, pizza delivery lads, sleek-suited business types and snooty chain-smoking joggers all snarl at this increasingly rabid dog. The cut-off payphone will not summon help.

The Surfer: wild fun

All the while, our sorry soul is mocked by a cackling kookaburra, barking hound and hissing snake. Aza Hand’s unsettling sound design amplifies these provocations as wild animals flash on screen, leaving a subliminal trace. Tony Cranstoun’s jittery editing exacerbates the unease.

Azure waves, post-box-red budgie smugglers and sand so trippily bright it recalls the Yellow Brick Road announce a deliberate artificiality to Finnegan’s world. It’s lensed like heat stroke-induced delirium by Polish cinematographer Radek Ladczuk (The Nightingale) with a hint of 60s sitcom, ensuring nothing is as it seems.

Finnegan and Martin seem to lead us towards the inevitable, but The Surfer has other ideas. Sure, it winds towards a paganistic ritual, but let’s not mention the bees of Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man remake of ill repute, also starring Cage.

In Finnegan’s wake-up call, the madness is mostly contained, though fractures remain. Neither as unhinged as Mandy nor as restrained as Pig, The Surfer paddles into place halfway between. A strangely engaging and deliberately frustrating mystery, it pops like the neon-coloured zinc on a snarling surfer bro’s nose.

The Surfer is in Australian cinemas from 15 May 2025.

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