Okja
Director - Bong Joon-ho
Writers - Bong Joon-ho and Jon Ronson
Starring - Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito, Shirley Henderson
He's probably
not going to get it but Jake Gyllenhaal deserves some Oscar love for this
movie. He fully commits to an absolutely bonkers performance as Dr. Johnny
Wilcox, the TV zoologist and face of the Mirando Corporation. He's so great
as the sniveling, slimy, creepy, odd personality and then manages to pull a
complete 180 when the cameras switch on and he becomes a professional, fun,
outgoing TV personality. Gyllenhaal is at his best when playing characters that
exist so far from reality (see Nightcrawler)
and Okja gives him a perfect chance
to display his talents.
As for the
movie itself, Okja is the story of
how the Mirando Corp. run by Lucy Mirando (Swinton) has developed super pigs
and sent several of them around the world to be raised by various farmers as
part of a Best Super Pig Competition that lasts 10 years until the Best Super
Pig is determined and made the centerpiece of a giant ceremony in the middle of
New York City. Okja is the super pig being raised by a Korean family who's
super pig raising technique appears to be solely letting it roam free among the
mountainous lands of their farm. Okja bonds with Mija (Ahn) who protests when
the Mirando Corp. comes to reclaim Okja at the end of the competition.
These
protestations set off a chain of events that leads to a spectacular chase scene
through the heart of Seoul between the Mirando Corp, Mija, the local police and
the ALF (Animal Liberation Front), a group of "not-terrorists" who
love every living creature and have made it their goal to set every captive
animal free. They are lead by Jay (Dano) who recites the groups credo at every
opportunity much to the chagrin of not only non-ALF members but his fellow
"non-terrorists". These events make up the first half of the film and
are spectacularly done by Bong Joon-ho, one of the big names of 21st Century
Korean Film having previously directed films like Memories of Murder, The Host and Snowpiercer. If you loved the zaniness of Snowpiercer it is on full display in Okja and for the first hour or so might be the best film of his
career.
Okja stumbles in the second half though as the political nature
of the film comes to the forefront making the clumsy points only a born-again
vegan can make on the nature of mass animal production for human consumption.
Bong became vegan during the making of this film and at many points during the
increasingly dire second half he seems intent on sharing the insights he
recently seems to have made about slaughterhouses and the large corporations
running them. What starts as a crazy, fun Spielbergian romp about a girl and
her super pig becomes and anti-corporation screed about the evils of the
livestock industry that isn't even logically coherent, often times almost
accidentally making points for the meat industry before completely ignoring
them.
That is not to
say that the second half of the movie is all bad. When reduced to the central
Mija-Okja relationship the film still works quite well. Okja is one of the best
CGI creations of recent memory providing the film with a great level of energy
and enchantment. Equal credit to the CGI artists and young Ahn Seo-hyun for
building chemistry between a young Korean farmgirl and a giant mutant pig
creature. The cast is superb with Swinton, Dano, Esposito and Henderson all
performing admirably. Dano in particular is great as the strong-willed lover
leading ALF and his compatriots (Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Daniel Henshall,
and Devon Bostick) provide a great amount of comic relief in the film. ALF is
particular is a great portrayal of animal welfare groups, there is a lot of
sympathy provided for them in the film as well as an almost equal amount of
scorn.
Bong Joon-ho
and Jon Ronson's script could really have benefitted from providing more of the
agents in this film with the kind of even treatment ALF receives. There is a
lot to like here from the classic Spielbergian feeling of the Korean sections
of the film to the performances, especially Jake Gyllenhaal, that it is frustrating
that the clumsy political message is so overpowering, threatening to completely
drown out the entire film in the second half. Bong managed to walk a similar
tightrope with Snowpiercer (crazy,
bonkers movie with increasingly political second half) but managed to keep that
one on the tracks until the very end (literally). He couldn't pull of the same
magic here leaving us with a good film that frustratingly feels like it should
be great.
Schurmann
Score - 7/10
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