The Surfer (2024)
The Surfer is the kind of film that creeps up on you. On the surface, it’s about a man returning to a beach from his childhood, hoping for a bit of connection, maybe even some healing. But what he finds there—both in the people and in himself—is something far more unsettling. Nicolas Cage plays the unnamed central figure, a man who comes back with his teenage son to the surf spot he once called home, only to be bullied and pushed out by a group of aggressive locals who claim the beach as theirs. That rejection hits him hard, and instead of walking away, he stays. What unfolds is a strange, quiet, and often uncomfortable story about pride, isolation, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
From the opening scenes, there’s a heavy stillness to the film. The sky feels too big. The beach stretches too far. It’s beautiful, yes—but also harsh, empty, and indifferent. The film makes great use of that indifference. It’s not the kind of place where people come together; it’s the kind of place where you can get lost, where time stretches out and turns in on itself. Director Lorcan Finnegan leans into that atmosphere, letting the silences speak and letting the landscape slowly become a kind of psychological mirror.
Cage is, as always, unique. He gives a performance that’s messy and compelling. There’s a deep vulnerability in the way he tries to hold on to his dignity, even as everything around him—and inside him—starts to fall apart. He barely speaks, but you can see so much happening behind his eyes. Unlike his explosive, meme-ready roles, this one is quieter, sadder. And it works.
The men who drive him off the beach are smug, confident, and quietly cruel. The kind of men who feel they own the place just because they’ve been there longer. It’s their control of the beach through dominance and mockery that sets the tone. There’s a sickening familiarity to it. You can feel it in the way they stand, the way they laugh. The patch of sand is about power, belonging, and who gets to draw the lines rather than a patch of sand.
What’s especially striking about The Surfer is how much it says with so little. It touches on some deep, uneasy parts of Australian identity—about masculinity, about exclusion, and about how people cling to control when the rest of their lives feel like they’re slipping away. There’s no big speech about it. It just seeps into the film, like salt into skin. It doesn’t need to explain itself. It just shows you, and lets you sit with it.
Visually, the film is stark and raw. The sun is almost a character in itself—relentless, unflinching. Colours are washed out and drained of warmth, which adds to the sense of emotional numbness. When bursts of colour do appear—a red rash, a vivid t-shirt, a flash of blue water—they hit harder because they’re rare. The production design is minimal but very effective. A single windblown tent, a rusty surfboard, and empty stretches of sand tell you everything you need to know about this man’s world. He’s on the edge, physically and emotionally.
The pace is slow. That’s both a strength and a weakness. There are stretches where not much happens, at least in a plot sense. But the tension builds in the quiet. You’re meant to feel unsettled, to wonder what this man might do next—or what might be done to him. At times, it drags a little too much, and the middle section especially could have used a bit more shape. Still, the feeling it leaves you with is hard to shake.
The sound design is subtle, using the natural elements—waves, wind, sand—to draw you into the space. There’s very little music, and when it does appear, it’s more like a pulse in the background than a melody. It keeps you on edge. The editing, too, avoids easy rhythms. Scenes hold longer than you expect. Transitions are abrupt or jarring. It all adds to the sense that nothing here is quite safe or settled.
Symbolism is scattered throughout, but never feels forced. The ruined surfboard, the tent pitched just off the beach, the ritual of paddling out into the waves—all of it points to a man trying to rebuild a sense of who he is. It’s not clear whether he ever really had that identity to begin with, or whether he’s just chasing a memory that was never real. That ambiguity gives the film its emotional weight.
It’s probably not a film for everyone. If you prefer fast-moving stories or clean resolutions, this might leave you frustrated. But if you’re drawn to character-driven stories that explore the quiet collapse of a person’s inner world, The Surfer has something to offer. It’s hard to pin down, and that’s part of its strange power. It leaves you thinking about loneliness, pride, and the places we go when we feel we’ve been pushed out of the world rather than about plot twists or big reveals,
It’s not perfect, and there are moments where it feels like it’s testing your patience. But there’s a real emotional truth underneath all that sand and silence. It stays with you—not because of what happens, but because of how it makes you feel. If you go in expecting a surf drama, you’ll be surprised. If you go in ready to sit with some discomfort, you might find something quietly powerful waiting just beneath the surface.