When the right director, script, cast, and crew come together, magic happens. Now, to get the right audience into the theater to see the film. If you enjoy psychological thrillers, ’70s movie vibes, gaslit characters, and Nicholas Cage at his best, then you should see The Surfer.
The film’s opening sets the throwback feel of a 70s beach movie while taking place in 2025 and introduces Nicolas Cage as The Surfer. (It isn’t just the film’s name; it is the only moniker given to the character.) He is taking his son out to surf off a beach down from the house he is trying to buy. This isn’t just any house; it was his childhood home before his father passed and his mother moved the family to the United States. It has become his white whale, the reason he has worked so hard at the cost of everything good in his life. As The Surfer and his son approach the water, a local comes up to stop them and says, “Don’t live here, don’t surf here.” They do return to the car, and the son gets a ride back to his mother’s. The film limits locations to inside vehicles, the parking lot, the coffee shack, the public facilities, the surrounding land, and the beach. It covers multiple days and nights where Cage does what he does so well and shows us a man whose grasp on reality is tested and slips.
Balancing the present and the past, reality and fiction, and so close yet so far, the audience is taken on a mind-bending journey. The score assists with this, flowing with The Surfer’s mental state and becoming dissonant at moments. The cinematography, set, and lighting add to the madness. I almost felt the blazing sun beating down on me, wanting to get to the beautiful ocean water. Local animal life is represented in shots that show accuracy, which also heightened my creeped-out factor. There was a close-up of ants in a decaying tree stump, regular everyday ants, yet the lighting and background noise were just enough to make my skin crawl.
The movie has many strong points that make it a well-made film, and it will have a following. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see The Surfer mentioned come award time. I was not the audience for this film, which makes it challenging to give it a rating. Based on how well the movie is made, it is 4.5 stars. If I base it on my personal taste in film/enjoyment, it is 3 stars.
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Finn Little, Rahel Romahn
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language, suicide, some violence, drug content, and sexual material.
Selig Rating: 3.75 Stars
Runtime: 1h 40m
Release Date: May 2, 2025
Genre(s): Thriller
Movie Site: The Surfer website
Trailer: The Surfer trailer
The Selig Rating Scale:
5 Stars – Excellent movie/show, well worth the time and price.
4 Stars – Good movie/show
3 Stars – OK movie/show
2 Stars – Well, there was nothing else…
1 Star – Total waste of time.