The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage in a self-indulgent meta-farce about ego and arms-dealing.
An Unbearable Waste of Massive Talent: Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal
A movie star called Nicolas Cage is on a career slide and, at the age of 58, is suffering a mid-life crisis. He wants to play Lear – or at least a modern-day, cinematic equivalent – but has just been shunted off “the role of a lifetime.” His domestic standing is likewise on a downward spiral, with his 16-year-old daughter Addy accusing him of being only interested in movies and himself. In short, he is a hard-drinking monster. Then he is persuaded by his agent to take a $1m offer to spend a short break with a Spanish billionaire, Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal), at the latter’s luxurious retreat on Mallorca. What Nic Cage doesn’t realise is that Gutierrez is both obsessed with the actor’s career and is the head of an international arms cartel. And he has the movie’s most toe-curling line: Following the actor’s announcement to retire, he says “You have a gift. To turn your back on that gift you will be turning your back on the whole human race."
To his credit, the real Nicolas Cage did turn down The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent "three or four times", but John Travolta was not available to replace him. In the event, Cage was won over and ended up co-producing the film, while starring as a fictionalised version of himself. But the joke would be on Nic Cage – if he wasn’t already a joke. Besides his lauded performance in Pig last year, the actor has churned out a phenomenal number of mediocre and trashy movies of late. And this meta madcap embarrassment is so broad and obvious that it is hard to watch. Only Sharon Horgan as Olivia, a make-up artist and ex-Mrs Cage, introduces a note of genuine humour, but she is largely under-used. To add to the feel of a big Hollywood in-joke, the actress who plays Cage’s daughter Addy is Lily Sheen, daughter of the well-known actor Michael Sheen, who recently also played a variation of himself on the TV show Staged.
The irony of all this is that Nicolas Cage would be the fascinating subject of a serious documentary. Besides his colourful private life – his marriage to the daughter of his idol Elvis Presley, his three-month marriage to the make-up artist Erika Koike and his various run-ins with the police – his career has proved surprisingly long-lived. Due in part to his precocious masculinity, he has been playing leading romantic men for almost forty years, with his on-screen partners running the gamut from Cher to Andrea Riseborough. That would be something to watch.
Here, though, Nicolas Cage’s real life is largely eschewed, although his old films are constantly referenced. Should there ever be another of this sort in the future, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is unlikely to get a mention.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Lily Sheen, Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish, Katrin Vankova, Demi Moore, Anna MacDonald, David Gordon Green, Joanna Bobin.
Dir Tom Gormican, Pro Nicolas Cage, Mike Nilon, Kristin Burr and Kevin Turen, Screenplay Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, Ph Nigel Bluck, Pro Des Kevin Kavanaugh, Ed Melissa Bretherton, Music Mark Isham, Costumes Paco Delgado.
Saturn Films/Burr! Productions-Lionsgate UK.
107 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 22 April 2022. Cert. 15.
