Okja Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Okja

A few years ago I saw a little known action-sci fi movie called "Snowpiercer", and not only did it turn out to be the best dystopian movie I had seen in years, it was also right up there with Gone Girl and Under the Skin as my favorites of 2014, and ever since I had the director Bong Joon-Ho under my eye so I could keep an eye out for his next movie, and so here we are with Netflix original "Okja", a film about a young girl and a rag tag group of animal activists trying to save a genetically engineered "Superpig" from the meat industry.

Right from the beginning of Okja, it became readily apparent to me that this movie was going to bare little tonal resemblance to Snowpiercer, where Snowpiercer was dark and grim in presenting its mature themes, Okja starts out sort of wacky and light hearted while still maintaining an air of maturity, and it was really refreshing to watch. It seems to be forgotten on a mass scale in Hollywood that a movie can touch on mature, serious, and adult themes without being dark, edgy, or inappropriately serious. It would have been weird if Okja, in its bizarre premise, hadn't maintained an air of self-awareness, and even when it had to get darker or more serious it never felt out of place because the film maintained a tonal balance and fluidity to make everything work.

It also never commits another cardinal sin I see all the time in movies like this, the problem that happens all the time in movies about environmental themes is that - even if I agree with the message - it's usually ham-fisted. It's usually the bi-product of a director shoving the symbolism and pro-environmental message down your throat, and Okja doesn't do that which left me overall very happy with the end result. Films like this and Eye in the Sky and Snowpiercer arguably do real-world parralels better than anybody else, introducing the concept of the overall message, integrating it in a way that gives it purpose within the story, and still let the audience think for themselves by the end of the day. It's that kind of freedom of artistic interpretation that's always been rare and only now with the rise of indie films are we seeing more and more, and it always leaves me with a smile on my face.

And credit where credit is due to the cast, with very little exception they're all doing really good jobs here considering they have to balance quirky & weird with serious and mature, most directors have to commit to one or the other so for an actor that's a lot easier, but with some of the performances in this movie - mainly Seo-Hyeon Ahn, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, & Lily Collins - it strikes a really sharp and really likable balance. The only one who ever took me out of it was Jake Gyllenhaal, who I usually really like but here he went a little too goofy and a little too weird and I wasn't a fan of his performance.

Final Rating
Okja is a fun little movie with a lot to like, it's a Netflix original so that really makes recommending it easy. If you like fun, weird, quirky movies then Okja should be right up your alley, it's definitely up there for me as one of my favorites of the year.