Okja is the latest film from South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, who broke into Hollywood a few years ago with Snowpiercer. What Snowpiercer showed me is that Joon-Ho has a distinct vision, and is capable of creating unique worlds that manage to mirror our own very effectively. But instead of a post-apocalyptic revolution, Joon-Ho leads us on an international adventure with a young girl and her pet, an enormous mutant pig. It sounds dumb, but it's not.
Surprisingly enough, the film actually does manage to make you feel something for the titular beast. But that emotion doesn't come solely from the effects; the heart and soul of the film is Okja's caretaker, Mija (Seo-Hyn Ahn). The thirteen-year-old actress brings Mija to life with a strong sense of dedication and focus, coupled with a sensitive concern for the mutant pig. Even though the actress was never really looking at anything in the interactions with the pig, you can see the love and fear for Okja in her eyes.
While the core of the story is the relationship between Mija and Okja, the film as a whole functions as more of a critique of the food industry. Okja is a part of the "Best Super Pig" competition created by the Mirando corporation, led by Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton). The competition sent baby mutant pigs out to farmers around the world, and Okja is selected as the best, and brought back to America to serve as the beginning for a new food development process. The Mirando corporation is introduced in the midst of a corporate facelift, using the pigs as an adorable new face to cover up their past atrocities.
Okja has a lot of fun with its portrayal of the emptiness of corporate humanization, and the artifices that are built up around the less appetising aspects of the food industry. Swinton, in a delightfully off-kilter performance, plays Lucy Mirando as an overtly-peppy figurehead trying to reinvent how her company is viewed, while also keeping the business going. A lot of the film is about what goes on behind closed doors, and it isn't afraid to delve into the dark, horrifying things that are done to produce food.
You go into Okja expecting a lovely story about a girl and her mutant pig, but when Mija eventually ventures into the slaughterhouse, there's no glamour or dramatisation. You see the production process in a very straightforward, clinical way, but through the eyes of a young girl whose only goal is to save her friend. It's unsettling, and even though the animals aren't real, they feel real. The corporate executives are clearly vilified, but the film is smart enough to not make them straight-up evil, but just businesspeople trying to run a business.
It's very telling what side of the issue the film is on when the secondary heroes of this film are the "Animal Liberation Front", led by Jay (Paul Dano). While these characters are equally as flawed and idiosyncratic as the corporate executives, it's very clear who we're supposed to be rooting for. Dano is fantastic in this, as a very dry, overtly-serious activist with a ridiculously efficient operation. The mirror to Dano is Jake Gyllenhaal as Dr. Johnny Wilcox, who seems to be channelling Ace Ventura in his insane performance as the TV star.
Okja is heartwarming, heartbreaking, and all around just a great little movie. The film manages to create an real connection between the audience and a not-quite-convincing CGI creation, and that's no small feat. It also crafts a world filled with unique and memorable characters, and shows that Seo-Hyn Ahn is a young actress with a lot of promise. For a story that gets so big and says so much, its rooted in very simple, emotionally resonant place, and you can't help but root for Okja to make her way home.
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