Not the greatest story ever told

    

 

    When I first heard about The Carpenter's Son, I thought it was going to be a sacrilegious over-the-top horror movie anchored by another memorably outrageous performance from Nicholas Cage. 

     How could it not be with Cage playing The Father, a character clearly meant to evoke Joseph of Holy Family renown?

    The movie opens with a title card that suggests that director Lotfy Nathan has something different in mind. His story, we're told, has been adapted from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a book that deals with parts of Jesus's early life you won't find in the New Testament. 

    Those who see the movie will understand why a gospel that's not widely read by most Christians has been deemed heretical by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox clergy.

   To begin with, The Carpenter is an agonized doubter about his son (Noah Jupe). Frustrated and desperate for answers, he wonders whether he's The Boy's "real" father. At one point, anger gets the best of him and he rants about how The Mother -- played  by rapper FKA Twigs - might have had sex with a Roman soldier and, therefore, became unclean.

    Twig and Cage seem don't look like they belong in the same movie, but only The Mother seems certain about The Boy's identity. The Boy himself seeks answers and is only beginning to understand that he has supernatural powers -- and I don't mean this in the superhero sense of the word.

     From the moment of his birth, The Boy faces danger. After a screaming birth scene, The Carpenter and The Mother take flight. The movie then leaps ahead to 15 AD. To avoid exposure, the Carpenter keeps moving his family around Egypt, finally settling in an eerie-looking village. A local merchant hires The Carpenter to carve an idol, a sure sign that something -- perhaps many things -- will go wrong.

    The heart of the movie involves The Boy's encounter with a village child called The Stranger (

Isla Johnston). We immediately know that The Stranger is Satan because Johnston has a fierce gaze and speaks with a beautiful British accent that's unlike any other in the movie. 

     If you see Johnston's work, you'll instantly know why director Baz Luhrmann cast her to play Joan of Arc in his upcoming Jehanne d'Arc. Even as the devil, there's something grounded yet spectral about his young actress.

     As played by Jupe, The Boy seems a bit of an adolescent misfit, although the story takes place long before anyone knew there was such a thing as adolescence. When The Boy has sleep-disrupting dreams about the crucifixion that awaits him, he wakes up screaming. His sometimes rambunctious behavior angers The Father, who frequently runs out of patience for the strange, preoccupied Boy.

     A creepy torture chamber -- crucifixions and other forms of horrible punishment -- can be found on the village's outskirts, adding a further disturbing note. Watch out for snakes.

     Lilith (Souheila Yacoub), a young woman who catches The Boy's attention (make of that what you will) suffers demonic possession and winds up in this doomed section of the village. We await The Boy's intervention.

     Can Satan lure The Boy away from his true calling, thus marking what might be deemed the First Temptation of Christ?

     I suppose you already know the answer, but this darkly hued, sometimes creepy, and determinedly strange movie is neither a horror movie nor a conventional piece of religious storytelling.

    The Carpenter's Son sets its story in a Manichaean world of light and darkness, but, in the end, I'm not sure what the movie captures -- other than a rare instance in Cage can't seem to find his footing, in which Twigs doesn't quite fit, and cosmic issues are supposed to vault over everything. 

      Whatever the movie had it mind, it's definitely not operating in the world as we know it, but that doesn't mean it's clear what world it's meant to occupy and, equally important, why it's taking us there. 

      

Nicolas Cage's deep dive into isolation

 

     When Nicolas Cage plays a depressed man, sadness rolls off the screen like a heavy fog. 

   You'll discover this if you see the simply titled Pig, the story of an Oregon hermit who truffle hunts with a pig that lives with him in an isolated cabin in the woods. The man -- we eventually learn that his name is Robin -- treats the pig as a household pet, sharing food with the animal who sleeps in a small bed next to his.

    Initially, Pig looks as if it's going to be a strange wilderness saga about a wounded man who has withdrawn from society.

   But, no. Thieves burst into the cabin and steal the pig, presumably because premier truffles can be so valuable.

    Until then, Robin has dealt only with Amir (Alex Wolff), a young man with the demeanor of a small-time hustler. Amir acquires truffles from Robin in exchange for supplies and resells them to upscale restaurants.

    Once the pig is taken, Robin and Amir head to Portland where Robin demonstrates how determined he is to retrieve his pig.

   If you've seen some of Cage's recent work, you may find yourself thinking that you've stumbled into another revenge saga in which Robin will slow burn his way toward an explosively violent finale.

   Director Michael Sarnoski has something different in mind. He begins a journey that takes Robin from a private fight club where he allows himself to be beaten for money to an exclusive restaurant specializing in molecular gastronomy. 

    Robin's takedown of the restaurant's chef (David Knell) is delivered by Cage with so much insight and conviction it's scary. 

   Questions emerge: Who is Robin? What tragedy reduced him to his current state? And what future does he have -- if any?

   Cage finally encounters the man who may be the source of his troubles (Adam Arkin). Turns out he's Amir's father.

    Cage could have loaded lines such as "I want my pig" with sneering ironies, but we don't know quite how to read a man who sees himself and perhaps the rest of the world as doomed. Cage never winks at the audience or undermines the truth of Robin's loneliness. He makes it seem like an honorable choice.

    Although some of Pig can be viewed as a satire about upscale food fetishism, it comes across as muted and doom-struck, full of felt sorrow for characters who begin to realize what their lives have become. Robin already knows. 

    Looking so grungy and battered you half wonder whether he might have been arrested for vagrancy on his way home from the set, Cage creates a memorable character, particularly when you consider the kind of notes Pig could have sounded.

    Just as important, Pig proves smart enough not to italicize every unexpected turn. Pig doesn’t earn trust by trying to make us feel better; it earns trust by not being afraid to dive deep into Cage's character and the fallen world he inhabits.