“DON’T LIVE HERE? DON’T SURF HERE!” Ok, now imagine that being said even angrier, and in an Australian accent. And you’ve got all you really need to know about The Surfer, a psychological thriller that moves swiftly from tribalism into a sadistic form of gaslighting. And the victim is Nicolas Cage, if you choose to see him as a victim.
It’s a remote beach location somewhere in Australia where the residents are small in number, but large in territorial hostility. The Surfer (Cage) grew up on this beach, surfing these waves. Why does The Surfer not have an Australian accent? It’s theorized by him having to leave for the United States during his youth. It’s never really explained, mind you. All we know is that The Surfer is trying to reclaim the home of his youth. He has a $1.6M offer on the table for it, and he’s taken his son the share same beach and waves he surfed as a youth.
He got as far as the beach before the “Bay Boys,” a pack of feral tribalistic dingo-f***ers, head him off and angrily send him back to the parking lot. When The Surfer doesn’t leave as so politely requested, he discovers a new level of Hell as he slowly loses everything of value to him. And The Surfer doesn’t leave. He is determined to surf those waves. That’s going to be a problem because the Bay Boys seem to live in a beach shack much closer to the action than the parking lot above. And they’ve all noticed The Surfer isn’t going anywhere.
In the bluff above the beach, The Surfer makes his plan, and we get to have 90 full minutes of The Surfer making failed plan after failed plan after failed plan. He’s like Wile E. Coyote going after The Roadrunner. A delivery guy shows up with twenty boxes of pizza. He buys one for $100. (The delivery guy is obviously in on the joke.) After collecting water (it’s Christmastime, the dead of summer in Australia), The Surfer returns to find his pizza overturned on the ground and his surfboard missing. The surfboard re-appears atop the door of the Bay Boys shack. The Surfer gets the police involved. The policeman sent is clearly a Bay Boy.
This is just the beginning. In a series of transactions/thefts, The Surfer will eventually lose his jacket, shoes, watch, sunglasses, car, wedding band, wallet, phone, and anything resembling food or drink. At each step, he is taunted by the locals. In each battle, he loses so profoundly we truly wonder what makes him continue. And then the gaslighting kicks in – for how does one determine the difference between a man with means and a vagrant? The difference
seems to be about 36 hours in a beach parking lot in the middle of a hot summer.
People like me are going to say, “Why doesn’t he just leave?” We’re not wrong. While he’s got the right and the money to buy the house he wants and surf the waves he wants, it comes at a psychological price that is too deep for my sanity. I would have given up long, long, long before The Surfer does. Some dreams are too painful to make real. But that isn’t the point of this film. Not really. Cringe-worthy as the action is. And, yes, this is a painful film to watch; it more about the selling of the soul than the reality of the situation. The Surfer never questions the dream; The Surfer merely asks what you would do to achieve it. Is your dream worth your possessions? Your relationships? Your memories? Your sanity? And -eventually- is your dream worth soul? Is this a film telling us to give up on our dreams, or simply questioning them. This is a tough watch, but a quality one.
But it still doesn’t explain how The Surfer doesn’t speak Australian.
There was once a man with a dream
Was well within reach, it did seem
But then a local gang
Thwarted all, and *dang*
So close, yet so far, he could scream
Rated R, 100 Minutes
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Writer: Thomas Martin
Genre: Gaslighting 101
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Stubborn fools
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Tribalists
