Okja (2017) review

Dir. Bong Joon-ho

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

It’s intriguing to note that in two different films this year, we’ve had two very powerful scenes scored by the likes of unassuming, soft rock artist John Denver. The first was the immaculate use of his ballad “Country Roads (Take Me Home)” and the second is the use of “Annie’s Song” in a beautifully emotional way in Okja. The only more shocking part about that note is that both songs are intensely fitting and make for some of the best, most pivotal scenes in both projects.

One of the crowning achievements of Bong Joon-ho’s very good new film is its ability to take the problematic and highly controversial food industry and give us both a satire and a weighty metaphor that encompasses it so thoughtfully. No other industry or hot-button debate-topic I can initially think of has been almost solely discussed in empirical, well-researched books and in statistic-based, alarmist documentaries. Finally, we have a film that gives us a creative spin on the subject that’s well worth a look and not a maudlin, morally simplistic film.

At the core of the film is a corporate conglomerate known as Mirando Corporation, named and operated in an eerily similar fashion to Monsanto, run by CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton). In the opening scene of the film, Lucy, in her speech announcing the succession of her grandfather, confirms that, for the next decade, Mirando will be breeding twenty six “super-pig,” genetically modified creatures that are something of a cross between a pig and a hippopotamus but incredibly larger than both. The super-pigs will be placed in a judging competition and also be mass-marketed as a sustainable source of food that can serve multiple different purposes similar to beef and pork products.

Ten years later, when the super-pigs are being rounded up from all over the world, a young farm girl named Mija’s (Ahn Seo-hyun) quiet rural life with her grandfather in South Korea is disrupted when her super-pig named Okja (pronounced “Oak-jah”) is taken from her. Initially visited by a Mirando associate and television zoologist Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), Mija, who doesn’t speak a word of English, is surprised to see how much attention her pet and best-friend is attracting until Mirando goes about taking Okja with them. This prompts Mija to abandon her grandfather in search of getting Okja to safety, with the assistance of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a social and environmental “terrorists” that operate like a radicalized PETA crossed with the hacking and disruptive prowess of Anonymous.

Swinton also plays Nancy Mirando, the twin sister of Lucy who was ousted as CEO only to turn up again in the wake of Okja breaking free on a congested freeway as a result of ALF’s interference. ALF is led by Jay, played by Paul Dano, one of the best actors working today, who bands his team, comprised of recognizable faces in the form of Lily Collins, Steven Yeun, and Devon Bostick, of activists together to go about helping Mija in the wake of Okja’s mistreatment and looming slaughter.

The cast is uniformly strong, with Swinton being devilish and having maybe a bit too much fun with her role as twin sisters that, despite leading one of the most powerful corporations in the world, bicker like school-children. Gyllenhaal is also ferociously manic as the aforementioned zoologist with a failing television program and a drunken demeanor that resembles a 21-year-old’s initial tolerance to booze. A good four minute-long scene is dedicated to Gyllenhaal’s Johnny incoherently babbling whilst clutching a pint of whiskey and even, at one point, trying to feed it to a depressed and lethargic Okja. Finally, Ahn Seo-hyun does a terrific job in a complex, challenging role by giving a performance of intense emotional caliber with surgical precision and conviction.

In one sense, Okja plays like an anthology movie surrounding the impact the decisions and reach a large corporation, specifically an agricultural food company, has on various individuals and powerhouses. For one, we see it effect and distort the media, which is where Johnny comes in, as well as farmers like Mija’s grandfather, on top of animal rights activists, those making the heavy decisions, and the public as well. There are so many variables in this story that Joon-ho, who also serves as co-writer with Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats), handles without creating much of a tonally jarring picture that loses the audience in a muddle of multiple focal points. In fact, Okja, even in its rarely jumbled states, is stunningly clear and never missteps to halt or handicap the momentum it works so well to build as the picture gets going.

Joon-ho has made a career out of directing films that take a deeply emotional yet thought-provoking route in portraying monsters and social and corporate injustices, and Okja sits comfortably alongside The Host and Snowpiercer as an amalgamation between both of those constants. The picture is shockingly well-directed given the constraints, with a chase sequence that is so spatially flawless and engrossing that it rivals some of the best of the past, or any other, decade, and combines overcast cinematography by Darius Khondji with Joon-ho’s elegant camerawork.

Okja finds itself very naturally and intelligently paced and conceived, with a lot of heart behind its story and a great deal of thematic heft that doesn’t feel pedantic. Furthermore, it does require you stick with some of its more meditative moments in the first act in order to be rewarded with a climactic but very engaging late-second and third act that render a beautiful, see-saw like equilibrium at the center. This is an aesthetic marvel with a gripping narrative that honestly deserves more than a Netflix release, but I suppose that’s a good way to assure people see it.

Starring: Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Lily Collins, Steven Yeun, Devon Bostick, Giancarlo Esposito, and Byun Hee-bong. Directed by: Bong Joon-ho.