Okja | MOVIE REVIEW

I'm not gonna lie, that was perhaps the roughest thing I've watched since The Passion of the Christ. That was heavy.

Okja was directed by Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer) and stars Seo-Hyeon Ahn, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, and Jake Gyllenhaal. It's about this girl Mija and her pet hippopotamus "super pig" named Okja, who gets taken away by the folks from Tilda Swinton's corporation, and now she has to get him the fuck outta there.

Having enjoyed Snowpiercer and really enjoying the marketing campaign leading up to Okja, I was excited going into it, but at the same time, I didn't quite know what to expect. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn't know exactly how good it was going to be.

Needless to say, I was shocked.

I'm gonna say it here as early as now, Okja was hard to watch. It's not because it's bad or anything - it's actually a really good movie - but because the story is so emotionally heavy. I wasn't kidding in the first paragraph; this was a ride.

But before I get into that, I wanna talk about the other things I liked about Okja.

First of all, this is a beautifully shot movie. The cinematography and the camera work in here is top-notch and some of the best I've seen this year, if not the past two years. The more intense moments in the film such as the action scenes were well-framed and captured in such a way that I had no trouble making out what was happening on screen.

And there were a lot of scenes wherein shit was going down.

The direction in here is top-shelf quality, as well. There were a lot of moments in here that could've gone the route of beating the viewer over the head with a specific message, but they didn't. As a movie, it isn't the most graphic thing ever - don't get me wrong, it's still pretty graphic - but Bong Joon Ho hardly ever shoves the ugly in your face. You get glimpses of it, and other times, you can tell what's going on, but the graphic-ness (if that's a word) of a scene is handled subtly. In some cases, it does leave a lot of room for ambiguity, which I did appreciate.

There were tons of great performances in here, as well. Tilda Swinton, for one, was so interesting to watch in the role she was given. She brought so many unique quirks and odd mannerisms to her character that made that character seem so unhinged while, at the same time, lending her some kind of vulnerability, as well.

Can't forget about him.

I really can't think of a Jake Gyllenhaal performance that underwhelmed me. The guy is one of my favorite actors working today and he absolutely killed it in this one. I don't know if this makes me a bit of a dick, but I was so fascinated by Jake Gyllenhaal's character every time he appeared on screen. He was such an intriguing character to watch and I wanted to see what he would do next. Great man.

Paul Dano was great to watch in here, as well. He plays the leader of the Animal Liberation Front, and was one of the most compelling characters in the whole movie. He's a bit of a zealot and the situations he finds himself wrapped up in force him to make the toughest calls someone in his shoes would have to make. And, from that, he does end up having a lot of really great moments of tension, and he handled those really well.

Gotta give massive props to this girl as well.

I really do have to give all the props in the world to Seo-Hyeon Ahn, who plays Mija (the main protagonist). I had no idea who this girl was before going into the movie and she blew me away. I'm gonna go so far as to say her performance in this movie is on-par with Dafne Kinnear's in Logan, and I loved Logan. She really was that good.

There were moments in this movie wherein she was alone in either a studio or the woods and she must've been acting with a giant green bean-bag, and she sold it every time. Never once did I think she was acting with a stand-in, and that's saying something. There were a couple of other moments in here that I can't imagine other child actors handling as well as she did. I've said it already, but I really do mean it when I say that this girl was really good in this movie.

Her character was pretty great, as well.

I really felt for Mija in the movie, as well. The movie did such a great job at establishing this bond between Mija and Okja that I feel a lot of viewers can relate to. If you have a pet or have had a pet before, you probably will be able to relate to the bond they develop here. I thought it was sweet and that the two of them conveyed a sort of innocence that would, later, become quite symbolic.

For a movie that isn't bankrolled by a triple-A studio, the visual effects in this movie were amazing. The CGI was really well-done and blended in seamlessly with the rest of the live-action stuff, and personally I thought the polish was great. Everything felt real and the superpigs looked heavy. I was hoping that they would feel massive in the movie and Bong Joon Ho established a sense of scale that I thought brought the best out of these pigs.

Without a doubt, though, the movie's biggest strength is its emotional core and the punch that it packs. While it does have its more light-hearted scenes and moments of levity and really funny tidbits here and there, it packs a serious emotional haymaker that will make you feel things. I said this movie was heavy, and a lot of it has to do with what the plot has Mija and Okja go through. A lot of it is rough to watch and really does put you, as a viewer, in a position that makes you rethink things on a very personal and ethical level.

However...

That emotional core is, unfortunately, also a massive amount of chips to gamble on. I said earlier that I didn't feel as if the movie was beating me over the head with its message, there were times wherein I felt it was trying to tell me what to feel.

To illustrate what I mean, it's kinda like this. A movie beating me over the head with something would be like how the 2016 Ghostbusters was rubbing it in my face the fact that these leads were women by making a bunch of remarks about lady cracks and queefing, and having that one scene wherein they read mean comments on the internet. On the other hand, a movie telling me how to feel would be like how there was a pause after in Extra Service to give the audience time to laugh. Now that I've established that, let me elaborate on my previous point.

Without spoiling anything, I will say that there were a couple of scenes in here that, personally, I felt were trying to tell me how to feel and what to think. One of those moments involved something Paul Dano did and the other had more to do with Okja herself. 

On top of that, I kinda feel as if the movie kinda rushes through things towards the end. I found the transition in between those scenes to be lacking somewhat, and, as a result, I did feel as if some character arcs lacked resolution. Granted, I don't need everything shown to me, but I felt as if that time could've been used to fill me in on some information that I might need to know.

That being said, Okja is still an eye-opening experience. It's beautifully directed, incredibly well-acted, charmingly written, and incredibly tense, but, as much as I think it's a great movie, I can't really see myself watching it again. It's not entirely for everyone, but I will say that Okja is deserving of a Vader thumbs-up.

I saw a review somewhere that said that this movie felt like a Studio Ghibli movie, but let me be the first to tell you that it's not. It's really, really dark.

If you're into really eye-opening, emotionally heavy movies, then I recommend you give Okja a watch. If you've seen Okja, I wanna know what you thought about it. Leave a comment, let me know. As always, this has been Rafa. Stay classy.