As is stated in the article, Cage's career, especially the past several years, has been decidedly hit-and-miss - and frankly, more to the "miss" side - but, "Pig" is a notable exception; perhaps his best performance in the last decade, and one that, if I may be so bold as to say, could potentially garner him an Oscar nomination.

I don't know that there's much more I can add, except to note the irony of casting Adam Arkin in a part that makes his scenes with Cage feel like an eerie transposition from when Arkin played a similarly abrasive, anti-social, hermetic gourmand in "Northern Exposure" some 20 years ago, and who was frequently at odds with the town's rich, ambitious patron. I don't know if it was a conscious choice on the part of the director, but for people familiar with the series it feels something like a wheel turning full-circle; a subtle, but also deeply satisfying paean to an earlier incarnation of the same character types.

If you get the chance, I would highly recommend viewing this as a double-feature with the also-Portland-shot feature "First Cow", not because they both feature animals as major plot-points, but because both evoke a vision of a wilder, softer, petrichor-infused sense of the Pacific Northwest, where longing and loss mix in equal parts with idealism and dashed dreams. Both are beautifully rendered, small, quiet, SLOW films that grow on one like moss on the side of an ancient fir tree.