“We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.”

There’s a telling exchange near the end of Michael Sarnoski’s feature debut, Pig, that clarifies its intentions and tone. Nicholas Cage, who plays a taciturn, world-weary, off-grid truffle hunter searching for his kidnapped pig companion, admits to his pseudo-cultured young buyer (Alex Wolff) that he doesn’t actually need the pig to help him locate the elusive fungi. He’s come out of reclusion, unburied dead relationships, and begun stirring up the niche community of truffle foragers and high-end restaurateurs simply because he loves his pet.

At first glance, the film seems poised to deliver a typical Nicolas Cage freakout performance in the revenge mold of John Wick or Taken (I was half-expecting something along the lines of Mandy). Instead, it subverts those expectations with a subdued, meditative story about loss, memory, and the fragility of human connection. Cage’s truffle hunter doesn’t embark on a violent rampage to recover his stolen pig, electing rather to re-enter a world in which he was formerly an alpha dog, a world which masks its brutality with cultured tastes and tidiness, with fancy cars and unidentifiable cuisine. He moves through this uncanny, abyssal realm in an introspective state of mind, observing old friends with formerly bright futures that have compromised on their dreams, seeking not vengeance but meaning and purpose, occasionally stumbling upon a conversation in which he finds himself on the verge of delivering prophecy to the corrupt.

He never reveals a “particular set of skills.” He never goes into Cage Rage. Instead, he finds a connection with Wolff’s bratty up-and-comer, whose own culinary kingpin father (Adam Arkin) had a hand in instigating the scenario. He reconnects with old friends and colleagues. Thus what initially presents as a genre thriller in a unique milieu turns out to be an effective character study anchored by a great, unexpectedly gentle performance from Cage, who convinces us he is a wounded soul in search of a salve rather than a flamboyant movie star playing one in an exaggerated B movie fantasy, with just the right touch of self-aware humor to keep things from turning dour.