what tale

10 stars for the pig - clean intelligent and nuanced. As for the rest of the film - the opposite. Utter contrived, overblown hogwash. With all the contrived "action" in the film (violent theft of pig, bare knuckle fighting, chef stardom, links from Cage to truffle contact to father) the whole film becomes a pointless Hollywood cheesefest. Its almost as though the film script written by a committee and each person got a piece of the action. Perhaps if "nothing" happened explicitly onscreen - say a simple loss of the pig, with Cage's rediscovery of society (in nature and in grief) it might have been a profound porcine Tokyo Story. But it didn't and it isn't. So it's supposed to be about loss and longing. But with all the women dead, babbling or working in a crematorium / cafe and with less than no female characterisation it really just comes across as a male film-star vehicle. A more interesting take about male regret and redemption is the film noir O Drákos (The Dragon, 1956 Koundouros) which is worth watching for the soundtrack and shimmying alone. Note this film Pig is well worth watching up to the point the first driven vehicle shows up on the screen (that would be 00:05:43).