The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Parent Guide

Actor Nicolas Cage has had some ups and downs across his incredibly varied career, but he seems to be reaching a low point. He’s in the midst of a divorce, his 16-year-old daughter Addy (Lily Sheen) doesn’t want anything to do with him, and he’s just lost a role which he was counting on to pay the sizeable debts he’s accrued at the hotel where he lives. At the urging of his agent (Neil Patrick Harris), Cage takes a gig to appear at a private birthday party in Mallorca. His host, Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal), has made a fortune in the olive business, but he has bigger dreams. He’s written a screenplay which he hopes to convince Cage to star in. Cage, on the other hand, has bigger problems. He’s been contacted by the CIA, which suspects Javi of being the kingpin of an international arms dealing empire, a man who is currently holding the teenage daughter of an Italian politician captive. The Agency wants Cage to find the young woman…but he finds it hard to believe that his biggest fan would be capable of such a thing.

You might reasonably expect this to be a Nic Cage-forward film. After all, he tends to steal every show in which he appears. Thankfully, in this case Pedro Pascal has managed to, on some occasions, out-Cage the Cage himself – but within the (admittedly insane) boundaries of the film. Both actors exciting and over-the-top, but without detracting from the film or chewing on the scenery all the time. It’s tremendously fun. Pascal and Cage both bring dynamic, chaotic energy to their performances and it makes the film shine.

In a similar vein, I was really prepared for this to be a film solely for the Nic Cage fan and less for the general public. Given that I once decided to see how many Nic Cage movies I could watch in one weekend (ten of them, believe it or not), I was well prepped. But again, the film holds up to the unadulterated power of Nic Cage better than I expected. I think he’s an essential part of the movie, but you don’t need to be a fan to appreciate the film’s warmth and humor.

That’s not to say that The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in any way qualifies as a family film. The primary issue is going to be profanity, with 84 sexual expletives scattered throughout the film’s script, which is definitely more than my mom would have put up with for movie night. Add to that a few scenes of drug use in a comedic context, and you’ve got a film which is exclusively geared at an adult audience with a tolerance for negative content. But for this adult audience, the film is an absolute joy to watch. I haven’t heard adults laughing so loudly in a theater in a long, long time. Thank whatever bizarre power in the universe created the wonder that is Nic Cage.