Okja

Year: 2017
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Directed: Joon-ho Bong
Stars: Seo-Hyun Ahn, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Giancarlo Esposito, Steven Yeun, Shirley Henderson, Lily Collins, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Hee-Bong Byun
Production: Plan B Entertainment

Director Joon-ho Bong's latest movie feels like the first draft of an impossibly convoluted novel. There's a clear message here and it promises to hit you with the impact of a bullet train. But between, the film's idyllic beginnings and ambiguous ending lies a splashy, rambling tonal nightmare that at is height is just off-the-chain nuts but otherwise seems satisfied with merely being. It's the visual parallel of a Frank Zappa song being remixed and played through a tin can phone while someone plays the theremin in the background. You can appreciate the artistry (boy you can appreciate the artistry) but by God, is this thing really necessary?

Ten years have passed since the Mirando Corporation used its considerable means to develop a new breed of eco-friendly superpigs. Within that time, farmers all over the world were licensed to raise their respective superpig anyway they saw fit with Mirando's CEO Lucy (Swinton) keeping tabs on them to see which methods are the most effective. Enter Mija, a small girl from South Korea who sees her family's superpig as more of a pet than livestock. Of course, Mirando, with the go-ahead supervised by a Steve Irwin-like TV personality (Gyllenhaal) opts to take Okja away from its home. Mija doesn't take this decision lying down and goes on an odyssey of sorts to retrieve her beloved friend.

Delicious, delicious dividends...

What follows beyond this point is an unabashedly ambitious tale of corporate greed, hypocrisy, media sensationalism and modern lunacy skewering everything from economic neo-liberalism to animal rights and online hacktivism. It's a admirable mix - one that could have theoretically yielded some interesting narrative dividends.

Unfortunately Okja feels more like a collection of angry bullet-points than a movie with a point-of-view worth the celluloid. Despite being a straightforward story, none of the film's biting commentary (or for that matter various narrative asides) seems to gel into a cohesive whole. One minute we're cast into a tranquil Ghibli-like tableaux of serene mountains and simple farm-life and the next minute we're in a madcap Rick and Morty (2013-Present) episode with the satirical ethos of an Alexander Payne film. And it's all MC'd by Gyllenhaal doing a positively unhinged Ace Ventura impression that gets dark right quick.

HEEELLOOO!!!

Much like the colorful, eccentric side characters, the film boils down Mija and her desire to reunite with Okja to the point of being just another cog in an unfeeling machine. She's used as a symbol among warring factions but it remains unclear if we, the audience are meant to interpret her this way. Meanwhile the movie sloshes about finding sympathies with the well-meaning but unconscionably vapid Lucy before ebbing into Jay's (Dano) respective foxhole. Jay, by the way is the leader of a animal rights fringe group called ALF, who often acts more like The People's Front of Judea only without the benefit of a moral high ground. Though I suppose as a proud near constant consumer of bacon, my loyalties aren't quite where they should be.

Other than creating less emissions, needing less land, time, machinery and chemicals, reducing soil erosion and increasing productivity...what has GMO foods ever done for us?

And perhaps that's the largest problem with the lumbering Okja - it doesn't just preach to the choir, it does so in the most chaotic of ways. Part of it can be blamed on Bong who relishes squabbles and intrigue over a tight story. One minute we're applauding ALF's efforts and the next we're supposed to be laughing (I guess) at each member's personal ineptitude. One minute we're supposed to be disgusted by the animal cruelty, yet its hard to truly hate a boardroom whose only crime is they're more concerned about their "eco-friendly" image than anything. It's clear who this movie is wildly swinging for but the recoil knocks out any chance of a winning story.


Okja is, to put it simply, a poorly constructed satire that gets more of its flavor from the videogame "State of Emergency" than Old Yeller (1957). Those already enamored with Joon-ho Bong's idiosyncratic directing style will no doubt be searching desperately for something to like. But unlike the far better Snowpiercer (2013) Okja doesn't lean on its parable to carry the day. If anything it's leans more by Tilda Swinton's choice in dentures.

Final Grade: F