Is Nicolas Cage Cake?

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a very smart movie masquerading as a very dumb one. The film is a testament to the pull of Nicolas Cage’s cult hero persona, warping the very film itself from a thoughtful, self-aware indie dramedy into the kind of absurd actioner for which Cage is now famous. That’s the point.

The film’s examination of the Nicolas Cage phenomenon ranges from the artifacts of fandom (creepy pillows and wax statues) to the films themselves, pulling from both the popular canon (The Rock, Face/Off) to some deeper cuts (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, anyone?). If Cage fandom is a byproduct of some of his more off-the-wall filmography, then The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a byproduct of some of Cage’s more off-the-wall fandoms.

As the film begins, we seem to be watching the sort of gentle, introspective arthouse comedy we’ve come to expect in recent years (something by Noah Baumbach, perhaps), but as the film evolves, the titular weight of Cage’s massive talent reshapes not only the film Cage plans with his new friend Javi but also the film we’re watching, with Cage himself becoming embroiled in a hackish, cookie-cutter spy thriller. It seems like something you’d watch for 20 minutes on Netflix before turning on Is it Cake? instead and guessing what is and is not cake. My money is on Nicolas Cage being cake.

Setting aside the admittedly crucial question of whether Nicolas Cage is cake, it’s clear that there is a point to this devolution in the story, from arthouse-adjacent showbiz meta-commentary to almost unbearably trope-y action flick. Like the inexplicable happy ending of Robert Altman’s The Player, the story and structure of Massive Talent tell more than they let on. It’s a commentary on the nature of popular filmmaking, and the compromises people make for such popularity but on another level, more importantly, it’s a commentary on they way star personas shape the films in which they perform. This is not dissimilar to Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis in the film-within-a-film of The Player.

Cage is now an actor defined by his most over the top performances, going back to Moonstruck, through The Wicker Man, and into the more self-conscious Mandy. In this way it makes sense that even in a genre populated by actors intentionally offering low-key award-bait performances, Cage opts for excess and ridiculousness. That is, after all, one of his massive talents, and the film we’re watching by the time Massive Talent ends is more reflective of Cage’s public persona than anything else.