‘Pig’: A Tender and Engrossing Character Study About Loss, Compassion and the Stubborn Dignity of Craft

Pig (2021) is a quietly engrossing human drama starring Nicolas Cage as Rob Feld, a once-celebrated Portland chef who has withdrawn to the Oregon woods with his truffle-foraging pig. Living in self-imposed exile after the death of his wife, Rob sells his truffles to a young supplier named Amir (Alex Wolff) and keeps human contact to a minimum. When his pig is violently stolen, however, he returns to Portland in search of his beloved companion.

The storyline follows Rob’s odyssey through Portland’s shadowy restaurant subculture, guided by Amir, who is haunted by his mother’s suicide. Together they seek out denizens of the city's underworld who Rob once knew, in order to find clues to his pig’s fate. Their trail ultimately leads to Darius (Adam Arkin), a powerful food distributor tied to both Amir and Rob’s past, whose intentions are both ambiguous and foreboding. The film unfolds in three chapters titled like menu courses, each linked to memory and loss, as Rob prepares meals that soften resentments and surface long-buried truths.

Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One), Pig is a tender character study that subverts its anticipated revenge template in favor of compassion and moral clarity. Cage gives a restrained, deeply-felt performance that ranks among his finest, while Wolff offers a sharp contrast as a young hotshot learning the difference between style and substance. The film is beautifully shot by Patrick Scola, whose tactile Pacific Northwest textures suffuse the film, alongside pitch-perfect musical accompaniment by Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein. Collectively they help to deliver a remarkably affecting meditation on grief, reflection and the stubborn dignity of craft.

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