Written by: Kevin Berge
We have finally gotten a true successor to Babe: Pig in the City. (Image Courtesy of: comingsoon.net)
Quick Take: Okja is one of the best Netflix movies to date with an intense and inspired tale that juggles tones and hammers home its message. While it falls short of greatness, it is so endearing and affecting that it is hard to pass up with wild action and over-the-top acting coupled with visuals that make you believe in and root for the title character.
***This is a review of the newly released Netflix movie Okja, focusing on its quality and themes to allow the viewer to see whether it is worth their time watching. There will be no spoilers beyond the basic set-up of the film in its opening thirty minutes.***
Director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer) is among the most unique directors in the business right now. He crafts movies that are dark and intense and are hard to ignore. However, he also has a tendency to push his themes to the extreme, not letting more than a few minutes pass without clearing underlining the main idea of the film.
Okja is no different, following a young girl Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) as she tries to save her pet superpig Okja from the Miranda Corporation led by Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) who want to use the pig to make the best and most sustainable source of meat in history.
This is a fantastical attack on the food industry, creating a giant lovable creature as a symbol for all livestock. This elephant-sized creature is realized with beautiful special effects that clearly make him as cute as can be. In a likely conscious decision, Okja looks more like a dog in many ways than a pig.
Joon-ho who both directed and wrote (alongside Jon Ronson) this film pulls no punches in this tale with mature content connecting this tale that could have been aimed at a young audience. This is brutal and even vicious particularly during its home stretch, and it frequently pulls no punches in its language.
However, this movie does not completely commit to a dramatic tale. In fact, it frequently relies on satire in its rising action. The biggest action set piece in this movie is dominated by comedic music and visual gags that make the action more humorous than frightening.
This satirical tone is also felt in the portrayal of the main villains. The Mirando Corporation is dominated by characters who are so over-the-top they don't feel real. The same can be said of most of those who attempt to aid Mija in saving Okja, defined by singular traits and ideals.
Director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer) is among the most unique directors in the business right now. He crafts movies that are dark and intense and are hard to ignore. However, he also has a tendency to push his themes to the extreme, not letting more than a few minutes pass without clearing underlining the main idea of the film.
Okja is no different, following a young girl Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) as she tries to save her pet superpig Okja from the Miranda Corporation led by Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) who want to use the pig to make the best and most sustainable source of meat in history.
This is a fantastical attack on the food industry, creating a giant lovable creature as a symbol for all livestock. This elephant-sized creature is realized with beautiful special effects that clearly make him as cute as can be. In a likely conscious decision, Okja looks more like a dog in many ways than a pig.
Joon-ho who both directed and wrote (alongside Jon Ronson) this film pulls no punches in this tale with mature content connecting this tale that could have been aimed at a young audience. This is brutal and even vicious particularly during its home stretch, and it frequently pulls no punches in its language.
However, this movie does not completely commit to a dramatic tale. In fact, it frequently relies on satire in its rising action. The biggest action set piece in this movie is dominated by comedic music and visual gags that make the action more humorous than frightening.
This satirical tone is also felt in the portrayal of the main villains. The Mirando Corporation is dominated by characters who are so over-the-top they don't feel real. The same can be said of most of those who attempt to aid Mija in saving Okja, defined by singular traits and ideals.
Sometimes you wonder if there is a role that Jake Gyllenhaal can't play. (Image Courtesy of: popsugar.com)
These portrayals will make some of the performances in this movie polarizing. Only Ahn Seo-hyun (The Housemaid) stands out dramatically as she carries the movie mostly by making Mija a face of bravery and defiance. Everyone else is playing an eccentric role with varying results.
Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) makes Lucy annoying and sometimes hard to listen to. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) has the opposite task, selling a likable man despite extreme adherence to tradition. Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) commits to the ultimate in campy performances and is hard to ignore even in a limited role.
The best way to understand Okja is to view it as a dark parable. Beyond Mija and her family including Okja and her grandfather (Byun Hee-bong), the characters in the story act as a symbols of ideas, pushing along this tale of how the treatment of animals can be clandestinely brutal.
Joon-ho has crafted a film that is at times truly beautiful, beginning in a magical pastoral landscape before venturing into a world of men. The constant focus on Mija and Okja speaking ear to ear makes their relationship real early on. Unfortunately, he is at times telling two maybe three different stories, shifting from one scene to the next.
At its core, Okja is just engaging viewing. It echoes older filmmaking with a sense that not many people makes movies this way anymore but also is dominated by a unique focus that makes it unlike anything else.
It is a shame though that this once more feels like a movie from Joon-ho only on the verge of greatness. With a fantastic cast and an intense vision, there was a chance this could have been the movie of the year, but it struggles to bring together its tale into a cohesive whole and sacrifices characters to a blatant central theme.
Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) makes Lucy annoying and sometimes hard to listen to. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) has the opposite task, selling a likable man despite extreme adherence to tradition. Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) commits to the ultimate in campy performances and is hard to ignore even in a limited role.
The best way to understand Okja is to view it as a dark parable. Beyond Mija and her family including Okja and her grandfather (Byun Hee-bong), the characters in the story act as a symbols of ideas, pushing along this tale of how the treatment of animals can be clandestinely brutal.
Joon-ho has crafted a film that is at times truly beautiful, beginning in a magical pastoral landscape before venturing into a world of men. The constant focus on Mija and Okja speaking ear to ear makes their relationship real early on. Unfortunately, he is at times telling two maybe three different stories, shifting from one scene to the next.
At its core, Okja is just engaging viewing. It echoes older filmmaking with a sense that not many people makes movies this way anymore but also is dominated by a unique focus that makes it unlike anything else.
It is a shame though that this once more feels like a movie from Joon-ho only on the verge of greatness. With a fantastic cast and an intense vision, there was a chance this could have been the movie of the year, but it struggles to bring together its tale into a cohesive whole and sacrifices characters to a blatant central theme.