Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

The Surfer

A psychedelic, nightmarish beachside bacchanal
Madman Films
by
ABR Arts 15 May 2025

The Surfer

A psychedelic, nightmarish beachside bacchanal
Madman Films
by
ABR Arts 15 May 2025
‘The Surfer: A psychedelic, nightmarish beachside bacchanal’ by Jordan Prosser
Nicolas Cage as The Surfer (courtesy of Madman Films)

The Surfer opens with its Australian-American protagonist, played by Nicolas Cage, giving his teenage son a surf-inspired pep talk: the ocean, he says, is ‘pure energy’. And like life, either you learn to ride it ‘or you wipe out’. These words could well have come from Cage himself, an actor known for his self-described ‘nouveau shamanic’ performance style, whose late-career oeuvre seems designed to repeatedly bring the sixty-one-year-old to the brink of spiritual oblivion. Even seemingly straightforward revenge romps like Mandy (2018) and Pig (2021) – in which Cage must avenge his girlfriend and his beloved truffle swine, respectively – transcend their thriller provenance to become on-ramps to ego death. Mandy in Mandy, the pig in Pig, the surf in The Surfer; all opportunities for Cage to stare into the abyss and see who blinks first.

From the New Issue

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.