20 Movies You Weren't Expecting To Make You Cry
3. Pig
Pig, an excellent drama film from director Michael Sarnoski and starring Nicolas Cage, is in a similar ballpark to The Grey, in that its logline and star set up totally the wrong expectations. In this one, Cage plays Robin Feld, a hermit whose beloved pet pig is stolen. He then goes back to the city he left behind to retrieve the animal.
It would've been reasonable enough to expect a John Wick-style action romp with Nic Cage going crazy, yet Pig is about as far from that as can be. There's almost no violence at all, for this is a sombre, character-driven meditation on trauma with Cage giving a subtle, profoundly moving performance that shows just what a great actor he actually is when he applies himself to material that deserves his talents.
It eventually wraps up with a razor-sharp ending that's both desperately sad and paradoxically hopeful, and it's unlikely to leave a dry eye in the house. Once again, we expected John Wick with Nic Cage instead of Keanu Reeves, and a pig instead of a pet dog, but we got something so much more special than that.