Nick Cage: "Is that supposed to be me? It's ... grotesque."
The unbelievable part of The Unbelievable Weight of Immense Talent is that it's all true (in a figurative way). Nicolas Cage can play himself, Nick Cage, because the many films he's been in, some worthwhile (Moonstruck, Raising Arizona, Face/Off) and some terrible (take your pick), have prepared him for a true meta experience, like John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich or the cast playing themselves in Robert Altman's The Player.
Of course, it's hilarious because Cage is usually a witty version of himself and making fun of himself anyway (except when he wins the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas). With the help of director Tom Gormican and writer Kevin Etten, Unbearable is a metanarrative of Nick as a burgeoning hero for his daughter, Addy (Lily Sheen), and a buddy for a drug kingpin, Avi (Pedro Pascal), with whom he writes a joke thriller, which Unbearable turns out to be.
Pascal's performance as a thorough Cage fan and possible drug lord emphasizes the often-close emotional bond between fans, star, and film. There is little difference between us and Avi in our love for the actor and his roles.
Throughout this comedy, the art of filmmaking turns out to take center screen as the principals dog out a workable script that they really are starring in here, more or less because the fusion of art and life is blurred. The varied facets of filmmaking and the actor's relationship with his audience are never far from the surface. Nor is it stagnant because each Cage film is a mirror for Hollywood's immediate needs and its actor's. In Unbearable Nick's striving for the "part of a lifetime," never far from a cliché.
For Nicolas Cage, such is his life, and the film makes fun of his accepting roles solely for getting cash to pay his bills, and maybe, just maybe, for the joy of acting, for which he's indicted when he loses the people closest to him because of his obsession for acting.
As Cage plays himself, he stumbles on the right script to reconcile him with his family and win the admiration of his audience. He's never far from his Oscar in Leaving Las Vegas or a "should-have-been-nominated" in Pig. A good will pervades this complex comedy, largely because Cage has a good heart hidden underneath his thespian ambitions, real or fictional.
