Nominated for the Gotham Award for Best Feature and also named one of the Top Ten Independent Films from the National Board of Review, also winning Best Directorial Debut for Michael Sarnoski, this film has been getting a lot of praise. There are some interesting things happening in this film. There's also the foundation here for a really affecting story that really succeeds in a lot of ways. I didn't think it went far enough to be totally satisfying. The ending in particular was a bit of a letdown.
Nicolas Cage (Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas) stars as Rob Feld, a truffle hunter living outside Portland, Oregon, in a cabin, deep in a forest. There was a recent documentary called The Truffle Hunters (2021) that some people thought might get an Oscar nomination about a group of aging men in northern Italy who search for the ground-level fungus. Except, they use dogs to sniff out their truffles. However, Rob uses a hog instead of a dog. Once he finds the truffles, he sells them to a young man who then provides them to gourmet or generally fancy restaurants. One night, a couple of thieves kidnaps the hog and beats up Rob.
Alex Wolff (
Hereditary and
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) co-stars as Amir, the young man who buys Rob's truffles. He's the son of a wealthy man who owns several restaurants. Amir is a very privileged boy, but his father has been tough on him in certain ways. Amir feels as though he has to make it on his own in some respects or stand on his own two feet. It's not clear what that means exactly. He seems like only a broker of food ingredients. It's not clear if he aspires to be a chef or owner, but when Rob loses his hog, Amir is the one that Rob calls to help him find the animal.
The film then becomes a bit of a road trip where Rob and Amir hop into Amir's sports-car and travel all about the Portland area, trying to find this animal. There's a bit of a mystery about who stole the hog and why. I'm not sure the answer to that mystery is all that satisfying or really makes all that much sense. Ostensibly, the reason the animal was stolen is to use the hog's ability to sniff out the best truffles. Yet, when the culprit is revealed, it's clear that the person behind it all didn't need to do that. There's a hint that the motive might have been something else more personal. Yet, the film doesn't really delve into that "more personal" thing, so ultimately I was left feeling unsatisfied.
However, the point of this film might not be solving this mystery. The point might be to see the relationship between Rob and Amir, which becomes one of surrogate father and son. As such, the film does a good job of building that relationship between Rob and Amir. At the same time, the film is about showing this other side of the restaurant industry, particularly that of fancy restaurants. It's showing us the underbelly as it were, the dirty side, literally considering how dirty Cage's character is throughout this film. Yes, this film is more about grief and how certain men choose to deal with that grief, but the film seems like it's also trying to illuminate how these, clean, fancy places derive their goods from not-so-clean, not-so-fancy places. There are other things though that don't quite fit with my interpretation, which makes me not so sure about much beyond the superficial.
Rated R for language and some violence.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 32 mins. things
Available on Hulu.
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