Review: The Surfer – Breaking point

Directed by Lorcan Finnegan
Starring Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Justin Rosniak, Nic Cassim

8/10

Hitting the Western Australian waves is all Nicolas Cage wants to do in The Surfer, but it’s not sharks posing a threat to him – it’s the local surfer gang. The Surfer’s simple approach is what makes it work so well, making its story and character development so much bolder.

The eponymous Surfer (Nicolas Cage) wants to buy his childhood home, a luxurious house on the hill of a beach-front, but is desperate to beat another high bidder. In the meantime, he invites his teenage son to come surfing with him, but as soon as they step foot on the beach, the local surfers immediately let them know how entirely unwelcome they are.

The Surfer puts his foot down at every opportunity to enter the waves, but is harassed and bullied by this gang, and he doesn’t get any help from the local cop (Justin Rosniak). With his car battery now depleted, he’s stuck in this beach parking lot, slowly losing his mind, possessions, and status with each new cruel humiliation, as he gradually seems to be turning into a bum, similar to the Bum (Nic Cassim), who himself is also tormented by these locals.

These antagonists are villainous all the way to the core, who revel in how much they take away from him and cause a disparity between them and him. They may be bullies, but they’re also family men, with loving wives and young children, which contrasts so sharply with the Surfer’s own failed marriage and woes with trying to connect with his son.

Things get so pressurised with how much is being heaped from the locals onto the Surfer, that you wonder when he’s truly going to snap and go full Nic Cage mode. And when the climax comes, it ends up even more disturbing than you’d think, showing a kind of vengeance that’s so pure and unhinged, it can’t be held back.

The Surfer was filmed in Yallingup, and the cinematography really brings out the blue of the sky and the green of the ocean – at times, it seems these colours are too bright and assaultive, though this slightly surrealistic touch really conveys the sun-stroke delusions of the Surfer. This is a gripping, engaging, and at times funny exploration into one man trying to stand up against not just humiliation by this gang, but from assimilation as well.

DAVID MORGAN-BROWN