Cannes 2024: Lorcan Finnegan’s Sun-Drenched ‘The Surfer’ is Sharp
by Alex Billington
May 20, 2024
“Everybody’s gone surfin’…” Except for you and you! One of the highlights within the 2024 Cannes Film Festival line-up is the Out of Competition presentation of The Surfer starring the legendary Nicolas Cage. It’s the fourth feature film from Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan, who also made his mark back at Cannes 2019 with the sci-fi flick Vivarium (here’s my review of that one). He’s back once again in Cannes with another entertaining contained, minimal (though maximal on the craziness), one-location story titled The Surfer, about a dude who starts a fight with the local surf bros who stop him from catching some waves on a secluded Australian beach. I had a fantastic time with this film! It’s funny and absurd, but also clever and astute, commenting on way more than just the bro culture of surfers. In fact, I was intrigued to discover by the end that it’s not actually about surfing culture or beaches, it’s about capitalism and toxic masculinity.
From a screenplay written by Thomas Martin, The Surfer is directed by filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan and it’s awash with vivid, sun-drenched colors. It’s set entirely at one gorgeous surfing beach called Luna Bay (hey I’d love to visit one day it looks nice), and mostly in the little parking lot just above the beach. Cage arrives in his “fancy” Lexus car and brings his estranged son along with their surfboards hoping to get some surfing in that afternoon. But all the surf bros known as “Bay Boys” stop him & remind him “not local, no surfing.” Apparently it’s for locals only even though it is a public beach. Cage’s character then proceeds to setup camp in his car (as his son heads off), as he’s intending to a buy a very nice house on Cliff Top Drive, and will be a local soon enough. As long as he can get his broker to finalize the deal and get his bank to secure some extra cash so it all goes through. Thus begins his day in hell. The locals begin tormenting him, and everyone from the police, to the coffee stand dude, to anyone else who shows up, mess with and mess with his head as he tries to make some sense of what’s going on. How it plays out next – you have to watch and see for yourself.
Going in to watch The Surfer at Cannes, without any idea what I’m about to watch at the world premiere, I was fully expecting one of these revenge films where Cage goes crazy, gets angry, and bashes all the surf bros into oblivion. For a while, I was just waiting for this to happen… eventually realizing it wouldn’t. This is not that film. Not at all. It’s really much closer to Finnegan’s Vivarium, a sneaky sci-fi tale where what’s visible on the surface is not actually the truth about what’s going on in the story. Eventually it clicked and started to make more sense, with Finnegan telling a story about corporate culture, succumbing to capitalistic dogma, and the toxic masculinity mindset that rules these realms. It’s surprisingly sleek and sharp how he manages to craft this paranoia tale of hysteria and craziness as a metaphor for the world we all live in (whether we like it or not or whether we want to admit it or not). Then again, all of Finnegan’s films are about this, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if you are familiar with his filmography. It’s not an action film and it’s better to go in not expecting that kind of kick their ass revenge tale though I don’t want to reveal anything else beyond this.
I had a fantastic time watching this and will happily recommend it to anyone looking for a good time at the cinema. It’s humorous and engaging, with the same visual vividness as in Vivarium but this time with sunny beach colors standing out. Honestly might be the best one-location capitalism sucks metaphor movie since The Platform (one of my favorites). There is also some surface-level commentary on toxic masculinity, but I think the homeless guy motif really indicates this film is truly about money and capitalism and caste. Crafty filmmaking with multiple layers to it. There’s more as well that can be analyzed after watching (no spoilers here). Nicolas Cage is, of course, excellent and lets his Cage Rage roar in the right way to make it enjoyable from start to finish. Much surfer dude fun, very funny. Even if it’s not at all what I expected going in, I still enjoyed watching this story unravel, with a boatload of Australian performances to balance Cage. Maybe I should find out where they filmed this, as the beach does look like a nice place to catch some sun and waves.
Alex’s Cannes 2024 Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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