Okja (2017)

This was quite the enjoyable film for me.  With its young heroine, diverse cast, and live-action Miyazaki sensibilities, I knew I was in as soon as I heard about it.  It’s bold, bizarre, and more than a little messy, but it’s also an inventive, engaging story about the love between a girl and her superpig (premise spoilers.)

Ten years ago, the Mirando Corporation made an important announcement:  they discovered the hitherto-unknown superpig, a gargantuan animal that could solve world hunger.  Having bred a number of superpiglets, the Corporation placed them in the care of farmers around the world for an epic, decade-long contest to see who could grow the biggest superpig.  Fastforward, and Okja, raised by an old man and his granddaughter Mija living in the mountains in South Korea, is declared the winner.  Mija had been under the impression that they could buy Okja from the corporation at the contest’s end, but Mirando has other ideas.  With Okja en route to a splashy PR event in New York, followed by the slaughterhouse, Mija is determined to do anything to save her friend’s life and bring her home to the mountains.  Along the way, her path intersects with that of the Animal Liberation Front, an activist group who wants to expose the dirty dealings behind Mirando’s happy-shiny marketing campaign.

Even considering the fact that it’s about a superpig, this movie was weirder than I expected.  It has some fun, quirky humor (the interplay between the principled-to-a-fault ALF members is great,) some of the action veers into the outlandish (Mija would have to be either a superhero or a cartoon character to survive some of the stunts she pulls,) and there’s other stuff that’s just straight-up odd (surprisingly, Jake Gyllenhaal takes home the prize for most bizarre acting choices in his role as the host of an animal-themed TV show, despite Tilda Swinton giving him a run for his money as Mirando’s CEO.)  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s always interesting.

I have two big takeaways from the movie.  First, naturally, is the relationship between Mija and Okja.  Mija is fearless in her determination to bring Okja home, and I like the care the film takes to show how intelligent Okja is, making her smart and sensitive without anthropomorphizing her.  The first scenes of them roaming the mountain together are beautiful, and the biggest moments are always between the two of them.  My second takeaway is the ALF.  The film clearly has a lot of affection for these slightly-ridiculous activists, even as it gently pokes fun at them.  I especially love their non-violent techniques for protecting Okja as they tangle with Mirando security.

Other than Swinton and Gyllenhaal, the film includes a number of other recognizable faces.  The ALF features Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, and Lily Collins, and over at Mirando, we can find Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle!) and Giancarlo Esposito.  Meanwhile Seo-Hyun Ahn as Mija is new to me, but she makes a terrific heroine.

Warnings

Language and violence (including graphic violence against animals.)