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"Okja" is the heartwarming tale of a girl and her giant mutant pig, brought to life through a mix of digital effects and puppetry that makes a nonexistent beast seem as real as E.T. or King Kong. It is also the tale of animal rights activists doing battle with a Monsanto-like corporation that wants to turn said pig, allegedly the cutest in a batch whipped up by genetic scientists, into a poster animal for a revolutionary line of meat products. These two modes might seem incompatible. But as overseen by the great South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (" Snowpiercer ," "The Host"), they mesh in a work of melancholy enchantment, by turns sweet, funny, scary, sad, and—in the manner of all good science fiction movies—thought-provoking. 

The heroine is a South Korean farm girl named Mija (An Seo-hyn), an orphan who lives with her grandfather Heebong (Byun Hee-bong) in a mountainous stretch of rainforest. Her constant companion is the title character, Okja, a pig with the rounded snout and leathery skin of a hippopotamus, a soft pink belly, and trusting eyes. Okja loves Mija and Mija loves Okja, but their sacred bond is governed by a ticking clock. As revealed in an opening flashback, Lucy Mirando ( Tilda Swinton ), the CEO of the Mirando Corporation, seeded the world with prototype pigs and announced that when they'd all spent ten years growing to maturity, the company would choose the finest environment in which to raise them, the better to provide the world with cheap but high-quality meat and meat products. The pigs were presented to the media as a "discovery" even though they were devised in Mirando's labs. This is one of many deceptions labeled "little white lies" by Lucy. They are meant to bamboozle animal rights activists and protestors against genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  

When the ten year mark arrives, Mija's grandfather tells her that he had to turn Okja over to the company, but that she can take solace in his compensatory gift to her, a tiny gold pig. Mija and Okja's separation kicks off a story that follows the pig from South Korea to New York City and (parenthetically) to a plant near Paramus, New Jersey, where hundreds of other prototype pigs are kept for experimentation and eventual slaughter. Members of the Animal Liberation Federation (ALF, just like the sitcom alien) briefly kidnap Okja and fit her with a camera that they hope will expose the company's animal rights abuses.

The ambitious screenplay includes discussions of corporate responsibility, the ethics of meat consumption, the acceptable threshold of animal cruelty, and other matters that you might not expect to see find in a film so simply told and lavishly produced. Is it a kids' movie? Every parent's mileage will vary. Without getting into too many plot specifics right off the bat, it should be said that Bong and his co-writer, Jon Ronson —a journalist, filmmaker and social critic who wrote The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry and So You've Been Publicly Shamed —have made a film that lots of little kids will want to see but that not too many will be able to handle. 

To their credit, the moviemakers signal right away that this isn't a film that adults can use as an electronic babysitter. The dialogue is liberally peppered with F-words, and the more exaggerated jokes about corporate hypocrisy are reminiscent of non-child friendly satires like " Dr. Strangelove " and " Network " (upon learning that it will take ten years for the pigs to grow, a reporter moans, "Jesus Christ—I'll be dead by then!"). There are also visual and thematic nods to cartoonist turned director Terry Gilliam , who made films that were childlike and sometimes childish but never strictly for kids—in particular the 1985 anti-fascist fable " Brazil ," which appears to have inspired the derring-do of ALF's membership, chivalrous rebels who evade police by diving off bridges. And there are many upsetting images of animal abuse, particularly towards the end—not as harsh as what you find through a YouTube search, but nevertheless unusual for commercial cinema. These harrowing moments are always tied to the characters' wants as well as to the film's belief in showing compassion for creatures lower on the evolutionary chain. But because we've invested deeply in Okja and Mija's story, they're still hard to take. 

The film is unapologetically against the assembly line-style "harvesting" of animals for meat, and perhaps, on a very basic level, anti-meat, period. Despite gentle mockery of the activists' self-righteousness and tendency to announce their beliefs melodramatically, and an unfortunately unexamined strain of fanaticism exhibited by the group's leader Jay ( Paul Dano ), the movie is very much on ALF's side. The gloomy concrete-and-ironwork facility where Okja's brothers and sisters are held suggests a concentration camp for animals; when key characters trek away from its main gates, Bong's compositions and texture palette evoke " Schindler's List " as well as George Miller's " Babe: Pig in the City ." 

The latter was blasted as too dark for kids. Bong's film is even tougher going, mainly because it steers clear of the "all's well that ends well" finale we expect. And yet, in the end it is somehow warmer, or at least less brutalizing. Maybe it's because Bong is a showman who packs every frame with three jokes and grace notes where most directors would only offer one, if that. The chain reaction slapstick sequences are as thoughtfully assembled as "Okja" itself, building and paying off amusing bits of business to create movies-within-movies. The pig's fearful rampage through an underground shopping mall in Seoul is a marvel of composition and editing, creating surprise through clever camera angles and unexpected cuts while giving us a glimpse of the bland consumer paradise that companies like Mirando depend on. The score, by Jaeil Juing, is a delight, alternating gentle acoustic guitar with his version of klezmer music, which lends a whimsical quality to action scenes while reminding us that this is, in a sense, a kosher film. The soundtrack of pop tunes is charming as well, especially when it scores a slow-motion  sequence to John Denver's "Annie's Song" (for the second time this year, oddly; the other time was in " Free Fire ").

The movie is so packed with incident and characterization that that it sometimes loses focus or wanders down alleyways it can't properly explore. There's a saggy midsection that concentrates too much on the corporate bad guys, scenery chewers who work best in small doses (besides Swinton, who plays both Lucy and her even more evil twin sister, Nancy, there's Giancarlo Esposito as a ruthless corporate bean counter). Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as a hypocritical nature TV celeb is the only flat-out casting disaster. Jim Carrey-style clowning is not, to put it mildly, this actor's most comfortable mode, and his fidgety, braying, often mincing performance is so misjudged that it destroys scenes that should have been unsettling or touching. And there are subplots that don't get the attention they deserve—in particular the conflict between ALF leader Jay and his lieutenant K ( Steven Yeun of "The Walking Dead"), which teases a conversation about how righteousness becomes intolerance that "Okja" isn't actually interested in having. 

But while these flaws might have shattered other movies, they barely ding the surface of this one. Like Brad Bird in " The Incredibles " and " Ratatouille " and the Pixar crew in " Finding Dory " and " Wall-E "—and like Steven Spielberg , the blockbuster filmmaker that Bong's style most often evokes—"Ojka" is an example of what popular cinema used to be. It's engrossing from start to finish, and masterfully juggles tones that might have caused viewer whiplash in a less carefully imagined work. It has a strong moral vision and stands as an example of political filmmaking aimed at the widest possible audience. Its point-of-view won't be to everyone's liking (I can see Fox News Channel getting a solid week's worth of programming from the fact that Netflix helped bankroll a blockbuster anti-meat picture).

But at a point in movie history where entertaining movies often stand for nothing and films with something to say keep forgetting to entertain us, this film's balancing act is remarkable. "Okja" never allows its philosophical and ethical interests to shove drama or comedy off to one side. The girl and her pig are usually front and center. When they aren't, it's their love that we're thinking of. And this is a love story, after all. 

A repeated image shows the girl leaning into the pig's floppy ear and whispering to calm her down. We never hear exactly what she's whispering, but the tight closeups of Okja's mesmerized eye show us that she's listening intently and gets the gist—that the girl's words matter and make sense even though they don't speak the same language. The pig trusts her friend. All the film's many threads ultimately come back to questions of trust: what it means to keep it or betray trust, and whether there are circumstances where betrayal is necessary, and whether the trust between human and human is more meaningful than the trust between human and animal. Mija would tell you there's no difference. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Okja (2017)

118 minutes

• Bong Joon-ho

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• Darius Khondji
• Meeyeon Han
• Jin-mo Yang

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The Resistance Gets Support, in Giant-Pig Form, in the Thrilling Okja

By Richard Lawson

Though festival tiredness (and madness) may be partly to blame, I’m going to give most of the credit for my weepy Friday morning to Okja , the new film from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho which premieres Friday at the Cannes Film Festival. A rollicking rescue movie with deep ache and hope in its heart, Okja feels like just the right story for this grim political moment. It’s something of a clarion call to those resisting the creep of various -isms—capitalism, totalitarianism, fatalism—without succumbing to sanctimony or sermonizing. It’s also funny and thrilling, chock-full of masterfully constructed set pieces that spin and chase with dizzy brio.

Bong’s last effort, Snowpiercer , was also a stunning action-adventure that housed a bracing political message. But unlike that grim and grinding film, Okja has a lightness to it. It’s more poignant satire than furious screed. Still, it takes hard aim at corporate evil, imagining a meat conglomerate called Mirando (sounds a bit like Monsanto, no?) that has bred a litter of “super pigs.” They’re given to 10 farmers around the world to be raised humanely and naturally, a publicity stunt used as cover for a sinister truth. Ten years later, one such pig, Okja, is living in the bucolic mountains of South Korea with her owners, teenage Mija (a soulful, winning Seo-Hyun Ahn ) and her kindly old grandfather ( Hee-Bong Byun ), when Mirando comes calling to assess the pig’s progress and take her back to New York City to be used as advertising.

Trouble is, Mija and Okja have formed a deep bond—Okja is clearly capable of reason and emotion—and Mija doesn’t want her to go. But she’s taken away, with Mija in pursuit. The film follows after her, and rarely slows down until its quiet and moving final scenes. Throughout, Bong dexterously demonstrates part of what makes him such an exciting filmmaker. He doesn’t invent his own physics so much as discover previously unexplored angles and trajectories that were (who knew!) there all along. Okja ’s action scenes are somehow both chaotic and precise, airy, drunken ballets that still crunch and thud. In one breathtaking extended sequence, a chase goes from an office building to a highway to an underground shopping mall. Bong’s nimble camera races along while still finding the time to highlight amusing little details—an insistent selfie-taker, a sincere apology from one combatant to another, a low-level company worker who’s finally had it. It’s a bravura scene, or series of scenes, that honors the serious stakes of the movie while still having plenty of silly fun.

There are indeed stakes. One could most plainly see the film as pro-vegan, and it certainly makes a persuasive argument for that. Mija is helped, and thwarted, along the way by members of the Animal Liberation Front, a real-life group of animal-rights radicals whom Bong gives a softening tweak. The ragtag band of do-righters who want to free Okja and expose Mirando’s dark secrets—played by Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Devon Bostick, and Daniel Henshall —have a decency to them that sweetly offsets the aggressiveness of their methods. (Bong and his co-writer, Jon Ronson , also throw a little casual queerness into their mix, which is appreciated.) In that sense, I think Bong is making a point larger than the animal-rights issue. He’s presenting, in humorous and fanciful fashion, a case for principle, for maintaining a core compassion while still doggedly fighting for good. It’s an encouragement to a beleaguered proletariat, weary and depressed and angry under the thumb of heedless oligarchy.

Or something like that. What I’m trying to say is the movie feels utterly righteous right now. It’s a bold and feisty middle-finger, a “we can do it” rallying cry. Which is awfully nice to hear in these crushing times. It’s what provoked tears during my fraught early-morning screening (which started with a botched projection, much to the loud boos and hisses of Cannes-goers), particularly the film’s lovely and contemplative closing scenes.

Okja is not all cheering positivity, though. It’s not naive. There is a bitter sadness, an admission of glaring truths at play in the film as well. Not all the Okjas of the world can be saved; not every cause can be won completely. But Bong urges that we keep trying anyway, while still finding the time to enjoy the smaller pleasures and surprises and eccentricities of life.

By Savannah Walsh

By Chris Murphy

By Joy Press

Not everything in Okja works as well as its messaging, unfortunately. Bong and Ronson have infused the film with a lot of oddball humor, not all of which lands. Tilda Swinton is a hoot as Mirando’s tightly wound C.E.O., a sort of well-meaning monster who’s given a gracious amount of humanity by Swinton and the script. (In that sense, Okja is wisely well-rounded—even the villains have dimension.) But Jake Gyllenhaal goes too big as a squeaky-voiced Steve Irwin-type who acts as the public face of Mirando—it’s a strained, overly mannered performance that doesn’t sit right. He’s emblematic of the film’s recurring main flaw, an impulse toward heightened, cartoony antics that are wholly unnecessary—and prove distracting—in what is otherwise such an agile and entertaining movie.

Otherwise, Bong’s latest is a giddy success. There has been much controversy about Netflix’s presence at this festival— Okja will premiere on the streaming service on June 28 in the U.S.—and I’ll add to the chorus in saying that Okja ’s filming is crisp and eye-popping, and features seamless creature effects. It should be seen on the big screen if possible. A TV or computer just won’t do. Still, one must give some nod of respect to Netflix for handing Bong the reins and letting him go wild. Okja is a buoyant, messy delight of a film, clever and rousing and full-hearted. I laughed; I cried; I chose to forego meat at lunch.

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Okja Reviews

Despite all of the craziness going on all around, we believe in the superpig.

Full Review | May 12, 2023

Tilda Swinton is great as the eccentric CEO who wants to use the super pig for her own profits while Jake Gyllenhaal is the crazed zoologist by her side.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2023

"Okja" is the kind of story that will render audiences silent, leaving the experience feeling somehow hopeful despite being crushed beneath the weight of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 19, 2022

Somehow, the very same qualities that make the film seem masterful might also be used to describe it as a mess. However you describe it, Bong's ambitions remain onscreen in an admirable, deeply resounding effort.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 23, 2022

While I appreciate what Bong is saying regarding social awareness, there was something that bothered me and frankly left me shaken and in tears, and that was how humans themselves and in particular the character of K (Steven Yeun) are treated in the film.

Full Review | Aug 5, 2021

This heart-warming adventure packs a big social conscience and a bigger futuristic pig-type thing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 22, 2021

The way Okja veers between action and comedy, horror and social commentary could lead to whiplash but it is never less than audacious.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 1, 2021

A slightly satirical look on our real life meat production, Okja realistically tackles the dark underbelly that we often don't think of when we consume our food.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2021

Bong Joon-ho returns with a magical, sweary fable and international cast...

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 23, 2020

Truly a gem of a film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 18, 2020

Sadly, the horror and humour are dead on arrival. Despite an all-star cast featuring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano, the performances are also wildly bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 19, 2020

In a picture that has scenes of absurd humor, surreal beauty, and even dark cruelty, the whole piece ended up feeling surprisingly safe.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 18, 2020

Connects capitalism with animal cruelty in a crushing way, forcing you to reflect about the way animals go through hell before ending up in your plate.[Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 3, 2020

Although I really liked 'Okja', it did get a little too sentimental and manipulative for my tastes. Visually, it is a huge treat and the central performance by Seo Hyun is exceptional. I'm a proponent of this type of bold, risk-taking film-making.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Jul 2, 2020

While it's definitely a sweet tale of friendship and devotion, it's also challenging and weird as all hell, a scathing indictment of capitalism and the corporate meat industry, and a monster movie where the real monsters walk upright and wear pants.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 1, 2020

The film makes me fall in love with an adorable creature, produced with stunning visuals. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 27, 2020

Okja is a satire on corporate greed and how awful we are. I know people who stopped eating meat after they saw Okja.

Full Review | May 18, 2020

Swinton's corporate boss is something to behold. Her Lucy Mirando is the ultimate imposter and represents how they have taken over the world.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 22, 2020

Bong puts together a shiny rollercoaster of a movie, with madcap chase scenes, fart jokes, and a heart-stopping climax that takes viewers inside a slaughterhouse...

Full Review | Apr 4, 2020

Essentially a pro-animal liberation movie, this becomes a pretty wild ride as the Korean child doggedly pursues the pignappers all the way to New York

Full Review | Mar 27, 2020

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Cannes Review: Okja Is a Madcap Creature Feature That Might Make You a Vegetarian

Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer christened a subgenre of film I like to think of as the alternate-reality blockbuster: a kind of big, over-the-top adventure that seemed transmitted from a Hollywood system that hadn’t been completely colonized by franchises. It retained the personal quirks of ’80s and ’90s multiplex fare, while being an international production from top to bottom, with the likes of Chris Evans and Octavia Spencer starring alongside Song Kang-ho. It felt like a throwback, but also like a particularly optimistic vision of a cinema of the future.

The director’s latest, Okja , is a continuation of this in every way, a madcap fable as purposeful as it is unpredictable, that bears no whiff of a committee, for (mostly) better or (occasionally) worse. This time, Netflix has been added to the blender, much to the consternation of the Cannes crowd. (They booed the company’s logo, just as they had the Amazon logo ahead of Todd Haynes’s Wonderstruck . ) But it’s hard to imagine how else a film this freewheeling and in open defiance of logic and convention would get made. The story, like its titular gigantic pig-hippo, is a hybrid, nodding to kid-creature teams from E.T. to My Neighbor Totoro, while also dabbling in both farcical and sincere ecodrama. It might be considered an out-and-out family film, were it not for co-writer Jon Ronson’s way around an F-bomb.

Okja opens with a head-spinning introduction to Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) and the Mirando Corporation, a Monsanto-like entity. Mirando is gearing up for a project to breed Chilean “super-piglets” that will be more economical to raise, and will supposedly help address food shortages. As Lucy, Swinton is once again Bong’s Orwellian nightmare woman, a platinum blonde, desperately insecure corporate prima donna with a set of braces behind her bright-pink lipstick, twirling and flouncing her way through her first press conference. It’s a fully realized, ridiculous yet identifiable character from the start; even Swinton enthusiastically lisping the words “best super-piglet” seem to belie a childhood of neglect and loneliness. We’re then treated to a montage of Jake Gyllenhaal, as hammy TV zoologist Johnny Wilcox, getting licked and nearly devoured by a series of animals, accompanied by fun music and cutesy graphics.

The film then flashes forward to quieter times, where teenage Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) is raising her super-pig Okja in the mountains in South Korea. Okja is part of a “contest” for farmers around the world to grow the biggest super-pig, and when Johnny and the Mirando team come to visit, it’s clear Okja is the winner. But that means she’ll be taken to New York City, and all Mija wants is for her best friend to stay in Korea with her.

So she follows Okja — first careening through Mirando’s Seoul office like a one-girl wrecking ball, then chasing her truck to the airport. Along the way, Okja gets hijacked by an ecoterrorist group led by Paul Dano, who wants to use the creature as a Trojan horse to bring down Mirando. And so the triangle of forces pulling on Okja and Mija is established. The ecoterrorists, particularly Dano and Steven Yeun, are another archetype tuned to strange and exciting new frequencies — pacifists who ambush cops or mall shoppers while crying, “No violence!” When Yeun’s character botches a translation, Dano berates him, screaming, “Translation is sacred!” (The Cannes audience, who saw the film with two sets of subtitles, appreciated this.) At one point, the gang tosses a bag of marbles at their pursuers and watches them fall like dominoes as John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” plays, for some reason.

And so on. The film is packed with so many strange gems of moments, and while a few feel like Bong’s losing the plot (specifically any time Okja decides to loosen her bowels), it always snaps back together. By the time Mija and Dano’s crew find themselves at a hellish slaughterhouse, Bong’s no longer messing around, even if the victims in question are CGI pig-hippos. For all its wackiness, Okja is also a deeply humane film. Even its final boss is never blown up to be any more than a garden-variety capitalist, which is, perhaps, the point.

It also bears mentioning that Darius Khondji’s cinematography is a vivid delight, and like so many Netflix films, deserves to be seen properly on the big screen. But a theatrical release is no guarantee of that: Even at the Cannes Film Festival, a veritable temple to cinema, the projection was improperly matted and had to be restarted after ten minutes . It goes to show: No venue is perfect. But if you’re watching this on your couch, like 99 percent of Okja ’s audience will be, check your aspect ratios. Translation is sacred.

• movie review
• bong joon-ho
• cannes 2017

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Okja review – giant Korean pig plus Tilda Swinton equals glorious family adventure

Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho has delivered a wonderful film comparable to ET or Roald Dahl in this story of a 13-year-old girl and her outsize pet

H ow can this movie’s producer - Netflix - ever be content with just letting it go on the small screen? Apart from everything else, the digital effects are spectacular and the visual images beautiful. It’s a terrible waste to shrink them to an iPad.

Okja is a Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s new “creature feature”, rather like his 2006 film The Host. But it’s also a lovely family action-adventure about a girl and the giant hippoesque pig, named Okja, that she has come to love like family. This exciting, charming, sweet-natured movie gives its audience heartmeltingly tender moments showing us their magical life together in the Korean mountains. Then it whooshes us to New York City and a world of cynicism, menace and danger. This movie just rattles along with glorious storytelling gusto in the spirit of Roald Dahl, ET creator Melissa Mathison and Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmatians.

And Bong Joon-ho has rather shrewdly hired British author and journalist Jon Ronson as his co-writer on this film and it could have been Ronson who brought in the flavour of the Anglo-Saxon classics – and almost certainly was responsible for big laugh lines in the New York headquarters of a heartless food tech company, whose hatchet-faced spin-crazed CEO marvels over the good press she’s getting in Slate, of all the hip places: “These are journalists who never write about pigs!”

An Seo-hyun gives an outstanding performance as 13-year-old Mija, who has grown up with no parents, looked after by kindly grandpa Heebong, played by Byun Heebong (who was in The Host and also Bong’s 2003 film Memories of Murder). Her only friend and companion is Okja, the giant pig leased to them by flinty-hearted food tech CEO Lucy Mirando, played by Tilda Swinton. Okja’s ultimate destiny is to be taken away from them, poked and prodded by Mirando’s scientists, displayed to the media as an example of next-level meat production, paraded with the firm’s grotesque celebrity TV vet Dr Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal) and then finally eaten.

But poor Mija has grown up not quite grasping that, and soon Heebong will have to break it to her that Okja must go, and it’s going to be like leading Baloo away from Mowgli and sending him to the abattoir. But a crew of animal rights activists, led by the inscrutable Jay (Paul Dano), have other ideas.

Admittedly, Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as the gurning Dr Wilcox is pretty broad and so is Swinton’s own performance at the very beginning. But her presence in the film deepens and intensifies as time goes on, showing us new perspectives of family anxiety and she is a marvellously watchable villain, wincing and scowling with self-pity and fear.

The scenes in which Okja is imprisoned and then makes an escape are staged with such style and dash – and there’s a lovely moment when the heroic creature finds a natural way of bombarding her cop pursuers from the rear of the vehicle which has taken her safety. Spielberg would approve of the end-line to that scene.

There is something inspired in the way the director handles the contrast between the bucolic paradise in which Mija and Okja have grown up together and the alien jungle of the big city. The narrative dynamic is comparable to King Kong in its way; but less adult and less obviously knowing. The scenes at the beginning where Mija loses her footing and Okja instinctively improvises a rescue are tremendously conceived. And the digital creation of Okja is itself brought off with terrific skill. The pure energy and likability of this film make it such a pleasure.

• Cannes 2017
• Cannes film festival
• Tilda Swinton
• Jake Gyllenhaal

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Okja Review: The Audacious Environmental Super-Pig Movie You Didn't Know You Needed

By Tom Philip , Kevin Nguyen , and Chris Gayomali

Tom Philip, GQ.com Contributor: Hello, Kevin! We saw Netflix 's Okja together, and I feel like we both liked it a bunch. For me, it’s only gotten richer and cooler and more fun the more I think about it/talk about it. I can’t wait for a lot of people to see this movie. What are your lingering impressions?

Kevin Nguyen, GQ.com Deputy Editor: I’ve thought about Okja every time I’ve eaten pork, so really, I feel more anxious and guilty about my meat-loving, environment-destroying dietary habits than ever. So I would say Bong Joon-ho’s ensemble action adventure has certainly stayed with me in the weeks since we’ve seen it. Like Snowpiercer , no one’s going to praise Okja for its subtlety. But its joys are in its brashness and its cynicism and its Tilda.

The actor talks to GQ about the making of Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho's latest movie.

By Tom Philip

Tom: Oh, yeah. This movie is LOUD, complete with a screeching Jake Gyllenhaal. I think there are very on-the-nose surface ideas the film explores; meat consumptions, obviously. Consumerism. But there’s a darker joke to the whole thing, too. Without wading too far into spoiler territory, Mija slowly has to integrate herself with this capitalist monolith of a company in order to even get a shot at saving Okja.

Kevin: Maybe that’s what works so well in Okja . There’s a lot going on, but plotwise, Joon-ho has left himself the space to explore a lot of different characters. And man, there are a lot of great performances in this movie. Gyllenhaal as a shrill sell-out Brian Fellows type; Tilda Swinton as a disingenuous corporate adolescent; Paul Dano as a slim suit-wearing ecoterrorist. Who’s your favorite, Tom?

Tom: There were a LOT of standouts for me. I know some people have been/will be turned off by just how execrable Gyllenhaal plays his character, but I enjoyed every second. He’s having a fun, brave time. Swinton is, naturally, one of the greats, but her Snowpiercer character, fake teeth and Hull accent and all, will always be my true love. I also cannot discount Ahn Seo-hyun as Mija. Without qualification re: her age, she acts the HELL out of this. She anchors the entire movie.

And now, Kevin, I want to ask you: How long after you watched Okja did you next consume meat?

Kevin: Like, immediately afterwards. But I didn’t feel great about it! (Probably because I ate so much meat.) Which is to say, as much as I liked Okja as an action movie with wild characters, I wonder if its attempts at a message are half-hearted, just in the way Snowpiercer ’s go at environmentalism and class were too on-the-nose to really mean anything.

Chris Gayomali, GQ.com News/Culture Editor: [ charges through a glass window like a super pig ] You mean like how they called the omniscient Monsanto-esque food conglomerate… Mirando?

Kevin: Chris is here, by the way.

Tom: Sure, there are plot holes, but as an elevated-reality, almost cartoony action adventure film about a giant pig and a fake evil corporation, it didn’t ring hollow or half-hearted for me at all. There are broad strokes, but they’re in service of the central relationships. Yes, consumer capitalism is “evil” as soon as you pull back the curtain, but it’s also what saves the day, when Mija buys back Okja. I think that’s smart, and subtle enough of a message amidst the big pig heists.

Chris: I understand that you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief for the plot to work. But since we don’t believe in fun around here, I’ll take issue with one of the story’s central plot devices: If you are going to bioengineer some giant pigs to feed the world, why would you make them super smart? Like, bomb-sniffing dolphin smart. Should’ve just made some dumbass pigs, if you ask me! (Or maybe just breed them without heads.) Speaking of squealing things, how did you guys feel about Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance?

Kevin: It was too much. Although Tom liked it because he is also too much.

Tom: I am! I live for big pigs, hyperbole, and big-budget bilingual movies that could never have been made ten years ago. I loved Okja and I love Okja and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me. This was one of my favorite films of the year so far. Though Chris, let’s talk about your bomb-sniffing dolphin movie idea.

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'Okja' Review: The Netflix Movie is a Brilliant and Scathing Satire of Corporate Evil

Okja , the genre-defying new film from Bong Joon Ho, has a startling coldness to it. It's not cold in the way that Bong's last film, Snowpiercer , was cold. Snowpiercer , with its icy landscapes of post-apocalyptic freeze, must have been one of the coldest films ever. No, with Okja it's a sleek, corporate cold. It's the grim cold you feel when you're on hold with an insurance company. It's the same cold you sense during Apple product launches.

The cold emanates from a multinational agrochemical company called the Mirando Corporation, a shadowy, Monsanto-like entity that specializes in genetically modified meat. The company's CEO, Lucy Mirando, is played by Tilda Swinton, whose tightly wound performance vacillates between PR-savvy cool and cackling outright evil. (Outfitted in "piggy pink" dresses and a blonde wig, Swinton's character has already drawn comparisons to Ivanka Trump .) When Okja begins, she is desperate to rescue the company's reputation for unseemly practices involving toxic waste. So she unveils an ambitious new publicity stunt: The Mirando Corporation will produce a new breed of "superpigs"—massive, mutant-like pigs designed to "taste fucking good"—and then send them around the world to be raised by 26 local farmers in different countries. The contest is to see which pig grows to be the biggest.

Ten years elapse, and the story picks up in South Korea, where a young girl named Mija (An Seo Hyun) is devotedly raising one of the superpigs, Okja, on a bucolic mountainside. They're best friends, Mija and Okja; the pig is a hulking, hippo-like creature, so bright and benevolent and loving that you forget it's just a tangle of CGI. Then, of course, the Mirando Corporation reappears to take the animal back. Cue again the chill of corporate greed. Mija is heartbroken. But when she realizes that Okja is headed for the dinner plate, she's determined to save the animal—so much so that she'll slam through a glass door and cling to a speeding truck if it means getting Okja back.

The action sequences are great cacophonous fun. But as a rescue adventure narrative, it's not really as predictable as it sounds. Things get weird when an animal rights group, whose militant-minded leaders are played by Paul Dano and Lily Collins, declares war on Mirando to try and save Okja. Meanwhile, the company plots to bring Mija to Manhattan and spotlight her in their cynical PR ploy. There's a weird glee in how Bong captures the corporate cabal in meltdown mode. Swinton rants and raves in an opulent skyscraper office. Jake Gyllenhaal goes for broke playing her most insecure underling, a brand ambassador named Dr. Johnny Wilcox. It is Gyllenhaal's most unhinged performance to date, or at least tied with 2014's Nightcrawler .

Snowpiercer , Bong's first English-language feature, also starred Swinton in a rather villainous capacity as the cruel minister of a train containing the last vestiges of humanity. Both films are thrilling and imaginative stories with dystopian elements and snarling sociopolitical overtones. But Okja is a brighter movie, both visually (the flamboyant costuming, the greenery of the Korean mountains) and tonally. It's not quite so bleak, especially with its childlike dimension. The animal cruelty is disturbing but not without purpose here. Okja contains multitudes: It's a scathing satire whose hero is a sweet, young girl whose best friend is a pig.

Related: Okja screenwriter Jon Ronson on veganism, heroism and corporate harm

Okja might be easily interpreted as a polemic against eating animals, but co-screenwriter Jon Ronson tells me the film's message isn't exactly intended as pro-vegan: That's too simple, and the good guys in the film do eat meat. More accurately, Okja is a provocative rumination on the cruelty of American capitalism, on all the atrocity we'll tolerate for the sake of a good burger or maybe a new iPhone. There's a grisly scene that takes place in a slaughterhouse. When Mija demands to know why the pigs must be killed, Mirando's fiendish sister Nancy—also played by Swinton—snarls that it's because "we can only sell the dead ones."

The anticorporate message risks being heavy-handed at times, but the humor keeps it grounded. Plus, it feels like an inadvertently timely message in this country, with our looming health care bill and our commander-in-chief who seems to prize business acumen above moral compass. Capitalism is cold. Capitalism kills. And the victims are not always as cute as Okja.

It's a testament to Bong's sprawling ambition that Okja manages to be so many things at once—a caustic satire of corporate evil, an intercontinental action/adventure epic, a coming-of-age narrative for the girl. And it's a testament to his craft (and his cast—Swinton is especially stunning) that he pulls off these sudden tonal shifts. This film is a Netflix original, which drew some jeers at Cannes. (Most special-to-Netflix feature films, you see, are not this good .) But that pig is really, really big. At risk of being an insufferable snob, let me say: It deserves to be seen on a screen that's really, really big, too.

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Okja Review

This story about a young girl and her best friend takes some startling political and emotional turns..

Okja has its fair share of pacing and tonal issues, but is otherwise so technically well-crafted and entertaining throughout that it’s still one of this season’s most worthwhile endeavors. (It also has maybe the best after-credits scene of any movie this year.)

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Film Review: ‘Okja’

A young girl is devastated to discover that her beloved 'super pig' was little more than a publicity stunt for the genetically modified food industry in this heavy-handed parable.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Most people think the problem with genetically modified food is that consumers don’t know what they’re eating, but if you ask Korean director Bong Joon-ho (“The Host”), the real trouble is that some of these lab-engineered animals might actually make perfectly fine pets — because what kid wouldn’t want to have a hippopotamus-sized miracle pig as a new best friend? Downright charming at times and irrepressibly gonzo at others, “ Okja ” hews to an all-too-familiar trajectory — the kind seen in countless children’s movies — as a bunch of mean meat-eaters attempt to separate a girl named Mija (An Seo-hyun) from her precious “super pig.”

A century from now, the citizens of the future will look back and judge the current era for our eating habits. Oddly enough, even though many in the filmmaking community have strong feelings about respecting animals’ rights not to become dinner, the cause seldom finds its way on screen, which is perhaps the thing that sets “Okja” apart from, say, Paramount’s “Monster Trucks” — well, that and a potbellied Jake Gyllenhaal playing an in-your-face TV host; a guerrilla animal-rights group led by Paul Dano; and a double-dose of Tilda Swinton as a pair of ruthlessly competitive twins.

Of these two Swinton characters, we meet good sister Lucy first, outfitted in Chanel and lisping through braces as she announces the publicity stunt that could save Monsanto — er, “Mirando Corporation,” an agrochemical company that manufactured nerve gas during the war, but has since cleaned up its act, sort of. Mirando now specializes in genetic engineering, having tweaked a breed of Chilean pig until it grows the size of a safari animal. Lucy’s plan is to distribute “thwenty-sith miracle pigleths” to different farmers around the world and see which one grows up to be the biggest, fattest and tastiest.

Fast forward a decade to somewhere far from Mirando HQ, where Mija lives in a state of total naïveté, spending her days at Okja’s side. These are charming scenes, reminiscent of “Pete’s Dragon” (as she tosses real fruit to the animated creature) and “My Neighbor Totoro” (right down to the way Mija naps on the giant beast’s belly), featuring great visual effects work on the creature, designed to look adorably dog-like. Early on, Bong encourages us not only to fall in love with Okja, but also to recognize the animal’s unusual sensitivity and intelligence, inserting a manipulative scene of animal altruism in which Okja risks her life to save her owner (when, more likely, both would have ended up dead).

Ah, those were the days — before Mija realized her super pig was destined to become super pork. Like the unsuspecting turkey that enjoys a spoiled life being fattened only to get a rude awakening the day before Thanksgiving, neither Mija nor her enormous pet has any idea what’s in store for Okja — which makes the young girl all the more devastated when Dr. Johnny (Gyllenhaal, sweaty and screechy in a performance that’s three times as weird as it needs to be) shows up to meet Okja and bring her back to New York City. Naturally, Mija wants to recover Okja, and so she sets off, armed with her solid-gold dowry, to beg, steal or buy back the big pig.

If all of this sounds like a pretty routine kids movie, that would be true, if not for the steady use of the “F-word” and a few eruptions of rather intense violence — no less distressing because Dano’s Jay and his ski-masked Animal Liberation Front are so apologetic during their attacks, politely insisting that they never meant to hurt anyone. There’s also a tough-to-stomach scene in which Okja is introduced to her “boyfriend,” resulting in some rough breeding. Bong has clearly included this scene just to upset, since Okja is sent to the slaughterhouse long before she could have piglets. And then, of course, there are the horrors of the slaughterhouse itself, in which hundreds of super pigs are penned in what looks like the yard of a German concentration camp, then carved up for meat inside.

Whether genetically modified or not, most people don’t want to know where their food comes from, but Bong insists, creating a sequence that’s more frightening than anything in “The Host.” If Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was able to galvanize the public into insisting upon reform in the meat-packing industry, perhaps “Okja” could bring about change as well — though it’s important to remember that Sinclair was more concerned with the working conditions in such factories than the ethics of what we eat.

Certainly, this is a far different kind of creature feature from Bong’s “The Host,” although audiences can’t help but recognize the same mix of over-the-top flamboyance and reductive philosophy. (Toxic waste is bad! Meat is murder!) Nearly all the scenes involving Gyllenhaal and Swinton play like those unhinged Asian game shows where exaggerated personalities in eyesore costumes hyperventilate on camera. It’s Bong’s prerogative, but still bizarre to see Westerners depicted this way, and Swinton in particular seems to have beamed in from some parallel dimension. When the actress’s two characters finally meet, we expect them to clash, but instead, Hillary-haired Nancy leans in to light her sister’s cigarette, and Lucy is never heard from again.

Shot in bright, cinematic widescreen by DP Darius Khondji, this Netflix-produced feature belongs on the big screen, where no one would mistake Okja for a real animal, and yet the CG is convincing enough to suspend disbelief. Bong has chosen to make Okja a larger-than-life animal, but she could just as easily be a talking pig (there’s plenty of “Babe” DNA here already) — the key is that his audience be able to recognize her soul. And yet, Mirando employees repeatedly insist that super-pig meat is quite the delicacy, which puts audiences in the strange position of wondering how the movie’s main character might taste.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 19, 2017. Running time: 118 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix Original Film release of a Plan B Entertainment, Lewis Pictures, Kate Street Picture Co. production, in association with Netflix. Producers: Bong Joon-ho, Doo-ho Choi, Dede Gardner, Lewis Taewan Kim, Jeremy Kleiner, Woo-Sik Seo, Ted Sarandos. Executive producers: Pauline Fischer, Collin Creighton, Kim Woosang, Christina Oh, Sarah Esberg, Brad Pitt, Stan Wlodkowski. Co-producers: Tilda Swinton, Sandro Kopp.
• Crew: Director: Bong Joon-ho. Screenplay: Bong, Jon Ronson; story: Bong. Camera (color, widescreen): Darius Khondji. Editor: Jin-mo Yang.
• With: Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, An Seo-hyun, Byun Hee-bong, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Yoon Je-moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Woo Shik-choi, Giancarlo Esposito, Jake Gyllenhaal. (English, Korean dialogue)

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Okja Review

28 Jun 2017

131 minutes

At this year’s Cannes, Okja became the unwitting whipping-pig for a furious and timely debate. Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s latest film, screened in competition, was picked up by Netflix. The streaming giant opted not to release it theatrically, to the chagrin of traditionalists. A chorus of boos greeted the film’s premiere.

A bubbling pork stew of disparate elements to make a true cinematic original.

Given his last film, the excellent Snowpiercer , never even saw a UK release, Bong must have been understandably tempted by the prospect of instant distribution in 190 countries. But while his film certainly deserves the spatial real estate of a cinema screen, the messy debate has clouded a more important truth: Okja is a brilliant film.

Paired with co-writer Jon Ronson (an expert in wry, empathetic takes on eccentric characters) Bong has rustled up a bubbling pork stew of wildly disparate elements to make a true cinematic original. It’s a Spielbergian adventure, a magical fantasy, a dystopian sci-fi, an arthouse morality play, a rousing paean to animal rights — all housed in the simple story of a pig born in a test tube, and the ensuing battle over her fate.

There’s something rather Ghibli-esque about the film’s nearly-wordless first half-hour, introducing a sweet relationship between girl and beast in a reverently rendered natural setting. In Mija — played with astonishing resolve by newcomer Ahn — we find a fearless young heroine; stubborn, resourceful, utterly intolerant of bullshit. And in Okja, we have a hero to root for from the off. Thoughtfully crafted CGI conjures a wholly convincing hippo-like swine, whose doleful eyes and selfless loyalty convey a sharp intelligence and a big heart. It’s hard to be wowed by CGI these days, but Bong ekes remarkable humanity from Okja, who wins our love from the first moment of hoggish flatulence.

Following a breathless chase scene — ended, marvellously, with a heroic act of pooing — Okja is returned to her corporate makers in New York. Tilda Swinton lords it up as a gloriously goofy villain, ridden with daddy issues, while Paul Dano offers a calmly spoken counterpoint, leading a crew of unfailingly polite balaclava-clad animal rights activists. Jake Gyllenhaal will prove more divisive: as Mirando’s celebrity spokesperson, he’s Steve Irwin by way of Timmy Mallett, playing it broader than Okja’s considerable behind and testing our patience whenever he’s on screen.

After a sunny opening act, the final hour is gloomy and distressing, and the tone pinballs a lot, reminding us what a strange beast Okja is. Campy acting and allegorical lessons might suggest a family-friendly fantasy romp, were it not for the fruity language, frequent violence and bleak depictions of meat production. It might not work for everyone, but that Bong can spin so many plates and (for the most part) keep them spinning is a testament to his skill as a surprising filmmaker. Whatever screen you watch it on, just make sure you watch it.

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Netflix Original Movie Review: Okja Is the Must See Film of the Summer

South Korean Director Bong Joon-ho delivers a thoughtful, visceral satire of the meat industry with his adventure thriller Okja.

Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho ( The Host , Snowpiercer ) once again challenges convention with his latest brilliant film, Okja . It is a thoughtful, visceral satire of the corporate meat industry . The genius here is the delivery of the message. Okja uses the innocence and determination of a teenage girl as the vehicle for enlightenment. Her journey is indeed a profound one. Okja is a highly relevant critique of current methods, but also a guide to sustainable, humane farming. We take for granted the ease of our food supply. The production of cheap animal protein becomes difficult to stomach when we peek behind the curtains.

Okja begins in 2007 at the New York City headquarters of Mirando Corporation , a global agricultural supplier. The bombastic new CEO, Nancy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), announces with great flourish the dawn of a revolution in the pork industry. Behold the super pig, a scientifically enhanced animal created from a unique Central American ancestor. Ten piglets are sent to ten farmers around the world. They will use their homegrown, organic farming techniques to raise the super pig. In ten years time, Mirando will award the best super pig a grand prize, then bring it back to America for mass production.

One of those little piggies was sent to a mountain farm in South Korea. Under the love and care of the precocious Mija ( Ahn Seo-hyun ), Okja grows to be the size of an elephant. Mija and Okja are inseparable. They play all day, then at night, Mija snuggles up to Okja's huge belly. Their idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), a goofy TV personality and the corporate spokesman for Mirando Corp. He is blown away by the size and health of Okja. Mirando has their grand prize winner. Distracted by her grandfather, Mija returns home to discover that Mirando has repossessed Okja. She runs away from the farm on a mission. No one and nothing will stop her from getting her best friend back.

Okja is a jarring story on many levels. There are childlike, wondrous moments that reinforce the bond between Mija and Okja. For example, Mija uses Okja to help her fish, but she only takes the big one for supper; throwing the little fish back in the water. The pair exists in harmony with the environment. Bong Joon-ho juxtaposes those scenes with the terrifying, grotesque animal plants and research labs. He also introduces other factions that want Okja for their own purpose. While their intentions may be noble, the tactics used certainly require scrutiny. The film ramps up violently in the second and third acts. What starts out as cute and heartwarming becomes disturbing.

Okja, the super pig , is portrayed in a sophisticated, realistic way. She is primarily CGI, but not cartoonish or anthropomorphized. Okja is an animal, a beloved pet with intelligence and feelings. She is akin to your family's dog or cat, a treasured part of life. Bong Joon-ho wants his audience to see her as such, not a pork chop or plate of ribs. He straddles this line with deft aplomb. Mija and her grandfather are meat eaters. But they treat animals with respect. This is in direct contrast to the horrifying cruelty of Mirando, where maximum profit is the bottom line.

Okja has excellent performances across the board. Ahn Seo-hyun, who plays Mija, absolutely owns this film. She is a force of willpower and determination. I think every youngster who sees Okja will identify with her. Tilda Swinton, who helped to produce Okja, and is a longtime collaborator with Bong Joon-ho, will have you laughing out loud. She has two roles in the film. The biggest surprise for me was Jake Gyllenhaal . Audiences have never seen him like Dr. Johnny. He is a caricature of animal TV hosts like Steve Irwin and Jack Hanna. It is a thoroughly repulsive character. Gyllenhaal continues to prove his immense versatility.

Okja is a South Korean and American production. This means the film is in English and Korean. It will be streamed on Netflix in the west, but get a theater release in Asia. Bong Joon-ho has delivered an incredible, masterful film. Okja puts a face on the glaring issues of sustainable, humane food production. The meat industry will undoubtedly attack this film and its message. Audiences will decide if Okja makes a difference, or is just a film about a kid and her pet super pig. I can say, unequivocally, that Okja is the best original film from Netflix yet. It is a must see.

Okja (2017)

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Summary For 10 idyllic years, young Mija (An Seo Hyun) has been caretaker and constant companion to Okja — a massive animal and an even bigger friend — at her home in the mountains of South Korea. But that changes when the family-owned multinational conglomerate Mirando Corporation takes Okja for themselves and transports her to New York, where ... Read More

Directed By : Bong Joon Ho

Written By : Jon Ronson, Bong Joon Ho

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Tilda Swinton

Lucy mirando, nancy mirando.

Seo-hyun Ahn

Jake Gyllenhaal

Johnny wilcox.

Byun Hee-Bong

Steven Yeun

Lily Collins

Shirley Henderson

Daniel Henshall

Devon Bostick

Choi Woo-sik

Giancarlo Esposito

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Okja movie review & analysis (2017)

Wrtier: Bong Joon Ho , Jon Ronson ,

Stars: Tilda Swinton Sheena Kamal Michael Mitton

Summary: A young girl risks everything to prevent a powerful, multinational company from kidnapping her best friend - a fascinating beast named Okja.

The atmosphere of the movie Okja is similar to that of Snowpiercer (the last movie directed by the director). In fact, this movie, similar to Snowpiercer, deals with how the system works (Illuminati!) and depicts its filth and cruelty.

“Mija” steps inside a slaughterhouse where creatures become an object of human greed and are cut to pieces. “Okja” – the giant creature – is exchanged for gold. They both walk through the prison of super-pigs to enjoy the taste of freedom, and the camera, instead of focusing solely on their happy faces, transmits the bitterness of captivity to the viewer. Okja is more than just a cultural commodity and is considered a cinematic masterpiece. Since the need to categorize movies for the audience, in contemporary cinema, has led to the conclusion that some critics, confuse the issue and categorize the film according to the relations of the audience’s taste, Okja has claimed to protect animals, while the main purpose of Okja goes deeper than that and is more than just the civic slogan of “animal protection”.

For example, the same scene depicting the situation of the captured creatures and the passing of the camera through their sad faces behind the fence is reminiscent of the situation of the Auschwitz Jews; Images that we have seen many times and now have been reconstructed in a new fantasy genre. For example, in this scene, under the influence of a scene from Saving Private Ryan, the super-pig parents give their child to a stranger, because they fear that he might die.

These references, reminiscent of war, raise old issues that have taken on a new color in the context of a science-fiction drama. However, this is not the first time that the effects of war have been explored in a fantasy film, and it can also be found in two-dimensional cartoons Like the Porco Rosso exemplary anime, Okja does not rely solely on the victims of powerful utilitarianism and points the finger of blame at capitalism. The face of the capitalist system becomes more exposed and ugly when the media is introduced as a means of deceiving the people, and during the secret meetings of the company “Mirando” in which the managers of the company have sinister goals.

The characterization of Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) also depicts political capitalism. The fantasy platform of Okja paves the road for extremism and does not challenge the existing drama. The critic’s ideological opposition can be justified by the director’s sense of nationalism; a director who lives under the shadow of colonialism in his country. The director recreated the scene in which Obama and Clinton watched the military attack on Osama bin Laden, replacing Lucy Mirando with Hillary Clinton, and Mirando with the White House. These scenes are all resulted from the director’s mischief. But we’re not allowed to deduce the content from these scenes unless the form gives us the consent to.

From the first scenes to the last, Okja constantly refers to the filmmaker’s ideologies. The presence of deceptive media is also associated with the film from the beginning; For example, in the first scene, “Lucy Mirando” walks into a ruined corridor with a special make-up and cover, which was once a workers’ captivity camp and now, years after World War II, slaves have been taken over by journalists. In some moments, Bong Joon-ho’s camera takes off in the veil of the power media, and instead of showing the dreadful background, he takes a close-up of Lucy, who is chanting slogans. In general, Okja’s allusions to the necessity of its fantasy, are so obvious that they do not require semiotic analysis. The director’s choice of the protagonist’s place of residence, which is a green village away from the hustle and bustle, to his journey into the depths of technology and turbulence, Los Angeles, all express the filmmaker’s pessimism on the American capitalist system. But these are not stereotyped at the heart of drama, because this film is not merely a fantasy melodrama, and it has made the most of the satirical elements of postmodern thought. If the Mirando family in the film is displayed as vicious, on the contrary, the members of the Animal Liberation Front – as chaste people – are also portrayed as foolish partisans.

The basis of Okja’s screenplay is dual and contradictory ideas, and this structure has caused satire throughout the narrative. Dual ideas that, while overlapping, are alternatives to each other. For example, although the two characters “Paul Dino” and “Jake Gyllenhaal”, are moving against each other during the drama, have commonalities in the transverse evolution of their characters. Both are heavily involved in the media, and their reputation and position are more important than the group’s goal. Both exhibit violent behaviors and don’t have balanced personalities. The filmmaker’s ridicule and pessimism towards both good and bad people have created a satirical atmosphere that is not unaffected by postmodern films. You can see the footprints of the Grand Budapest Hotel – in the way Americans communicate with each other. It is also the ingenuity of the filmmaker to choose the most radical recent relationship stereotype portrayed in American cinema: closed relationships far from genuine feelings that the element of satire makes them look empty and hollow.

Other conflicting ideas include Lucy and Nancy, both of whom deliberately portray the same pessimism of the filmmaker towards those in power in the United States. In fact, although both of Mirando’s sisters criticize each other’s performance; they both have sinister goals in mind, and they both manage the organization with the same goals. Perhaps the bitterest idea in this film is the idea of paying the price for the release of Okja’s life with a golden pig; an allusion to the inevitable fate of dominated human beings whose value is measured by numbers. This allusion is not unaffected by the last sequence of Schindler’s List that the liberation of the Jews was bought with money and gold. Okja also has a human idea that manifests itself in a functional cause and effect in this tumult of war and extravagance and desire. In the first scenes of the film, “Okja” sacrifices himself for “Mija” and saves her from death. The function of this scene is not only to instill beauty in the super pig but also a dramatic reason that motivates “Mija” to travel and save the life of the great kind giant. Perhaps Okja’s only serious and significant flaw in the film’s context is the overstatement of the role of “Dr. Johnny” (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose insanity has no convincing reason and has not passed the characterization test. The rest of the characters, who are among more well-known types, are well-placed in the heart of fantasy, and it seems that Bong Joon-ho is looking for a new way to express his old doctrines.

He has chosen a framework that may initially be compared with teenage movies, but the abundant implicit and objective violence of the film closes the way for children or adolescents to watch or at least understand the film correctly. It is superficial if we take a brief look at such works; just to connect more with the alternative of this type of cinema. My impression – as a fan of cinema as an art and opposed to any entertaining element outside the flow of form – is that the film critic’s job is to extract meanings from images, and the type of cinema is not of great importance. If we are interested in categorizing, Okja can be categorized alongside the noisy and extravagant but disturbing fantasy works of Hollywood cinema, of which there are many recent examples. Among the movies that have literary value as well as technical skills, are Game of Thrones, B. F. G, and low-level examples such as The Jungle Book and Alice Beyond the Mirror, which are categorized in the fantasy genre. Okja is neither so close to the top of this pyramid nor so low that it is close to the examples mentioned.

Okja movie ending explained:

They return to their Eden when Mija successfully rescues Okja from the slaughterhouse at the film’s conclusion. It’s possible to view this as a joyful ending in which Okja, Mija, the grandfather, and the young super pig who was saved from the slaughterhouse are all now content.

Does Okja have a sad ending?

Animal communicator Mija (An Seo Hyun) claims she wants to speak with OKJA. Although OKJA is speechless, she produces cries, moans, and animal noises. Despite all the agony and destruction Mija and OKJA have gone through, the ending remains optimistic.

Is Okja based on a true story?

When it was first launched in June 2017, the science-fiction adventure “Okja” would chillingly reflect the actual world. According to a recent Bloomberg News report, farmers in China’s southern area are already raising enormous pigs that are the size of polar bears.

What is the main message of Okja?

Okja is merely a short tale about a girl’s connection with an animal and her wish to spare his pal from a terrible fate.

I have loved movies since I can remember. This love is still in me and will be. Cinema is my life! On this site, my colleagues and I write articles that will help you to have a better and deeper connection with the world of movies and TV series. ENJOY!

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2 responses to “okja movie review & analysis (2017)”.

The novel Okja is about a life in the future. What has been predicted to happen may actually occur. Genetic mutation occurs everywhere, including in animal and food studies. The film opens with a joyful sequence that is full of fun while also highlighting the brutal cruelty and suffering that humans inflict on animals. If you can control both happy and sad emotions, it’s a wonderful watch.

It’s heartbreaking and actually provides insight into how animals may be treated in the future. captures all the feelings: joy, fear, excitement, hope, grief, and humor. This is a must-watch, but if you have a really weak stomach, be careful because there are several situations that will make you seriously reconsider your actions. You’ll laugh, weep, etc. I give it a five-star rating because of the excellent production values, engaging plot, and all-around wonderful quality of the finished movie.

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Okja review — A surreal and quirky movie about a super pig

Bright colors, quirky characters, and at the center of it a super pig.  okja  is a visual delight but offers something deeper below its surface..

Okja is a super pig. Yes, that’s what they call her species in the eponymous film. This animal, which is double the size of a hippo, slobbers uncontrollably, and has a propensity to fart — sometimes on command — is also a gentle and loyal giant. That’s clear from Okja’s relationship with Mija, a farm girl in Korea who has grown up with Okja from when she was a toddler. It’s the setup for the classic kid and their animal best friend movie that we’ve seen countless times — Charlotte’s Web , Free Willy , etc. However, this is certainly not one of those movies.

The opening act of the film is a surreal study of a human, their companion, and their relationship. Mija and Okja aren’t human and pet. They’re truly best friends. Okja is as loyal and caring for Mija as she is for her. More importantly, though, Okja’s intelligence and compassion are on full display. It shows that there is a soul behind her eyes. However, that all comes crashing down when a caustic television veterinarian (played by Jake Gyllenhaal ) comes to retrieve Okja for the media rounds before ultimately becoming just a product in a grocery store.

As the setting shifts from Seoul to New York, we are introduced to the members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) — led by Paul Dano , who gives a marvelous performance — a PETA like organization that tries help Mija get Okja back. However, they, like Mirando, have ulterior motives as well. After the first act, which plays a lot like the dreamscapes of a Hayao Miyazaki film, the rest of the movie works best when the ALF or Tilda Swinton is on screen. Both sides are at times morally compromised. However, they also have a humanity that makes you understand the dilemma’s they face. That’s not to say that the movie is constantly bleak or overly serious. In the end, Bong Joon-Ho is a director that finds the humor in even the darkest of topics. For example, one of the members of ALF is constantly fainting because he eats as little as possible to leave the smallest carbon footprint. How far do you go to exemplify your ideals?

To try and classify Okja would be a disservice to the movie. It’s as one of a kind of a film as they come. And that’s its greatest virtue. For this movie to work, it has to march to the beat of its own drum. That beat is a wonderfully unconventional movie that’s sometimes satire, sometimes dark comedy, but all heart.

★★★★ out of 5

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 12 Years A Slave Movie Review — A Beautiful, Unflinching Film
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Nominations: Snubs and Surprises
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture (Updated 2/16)
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Director (Is Alfonso Cuarón a Lock to Win?)

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‘okja’: film review | cannes 2017.

Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal lead a starry internatioal cast in this Netflix-bound comedy thriller from 'Snowpiercer' director Bong Joon-ho, a controversial prize contender in Cannes.

By Stephen Dalton

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An ungainly mix of benign monster movie, action comedy and coming-of-age fable, Okja marks South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s contentious debut in the official Cannes competition selection. This effects-driven ensemble piece is a tonally uneven affair, cluttered with tone-deaf dialogue and crudely sketched characters that recall Luc Besson at his most obtuse. But such minor flaws did not prevent Bong’s previous adventures in socially conscious sci-fi fantasy, notably The Host and Snowpiercer , from earning critical raves and healthy box office numbers.

Bong’s unorthodox creature feature is already a focus of Cannes controversy after French industry body CNC protested the festival’s inclusion of films destined to bypass domestic theaters altogether. Okja is actually scheduled for a wide big-screen run in South Korea, plus more limited U.S. and U.K. outings in parallel with its global Netflix launch June 28. Festival bosses have now agreed to bar any future films that do not qualify for local cinema release. But this was not enough of a compromise to prevent a disruptive coordinated campaign of audience booing and clapping during the first press screening in Cannes, presumably objecting to the Netflix connection.

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Release date: Jun 28, 2017

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Production companies: Plan B Entertainment, Lewis Pictures, Kate Street Picture Company, in association with Netflix Cast: Tilda Swinton , Jake Gyllenhaal , Paul Dano , An Seo Hyun, Byun Heebong, Steven Yeun , Giancarlo Esposito, Lily Collins , Yoon Je Moon, Shirley Henderson , Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Woo Shik Choi Director: Bong Joon-ho Screenwriters: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson Producers: Dooho Choi, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Woo Sik Seo, Lewis Taewan Kim Cinematographer: Darius Khondji Editor: Yang Jinmo Production designers: Lee Ha Jun, Kevin Thompson Costume designers: Choi Seyeon, Catherine George Music: Jaeil Jung 118 minutes  

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Extreme peril, swearing in violent eco-fable.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Speaks out loudly against corporate misconduct, cr

The young heroine is courageous, determined, resou

Intense, disturbing violence against animals, who

Frequent profanity and cursing: "f--k" in all form

Alcoholic beverages in several scenes. One feature

Parents need to know that Okja isn't a movie for kids. Despite the family-friendly poster of a giant pig and a little girl, and though it has many comic elements, it's an extremely intense, violent film about cruelty to animals in a world in which corporations wreak havoc on the planet. After a brief intro to…

Positive Messages

Speaks out loudly against corporate misconduct, cruelty to animals. Promotes standing up for the powerless. Lauds the connection between the natural environment and the human beneficiaries of its splendor. Themes include courage and integrity.

Positive Role Models

The young heroine is courageous, determined, resourceful, and passionate about the natural world. She fights vigorously on behalf of all humanity against corporate evil, greed, insensitivity to other species. A parental figure -- her seemingly responsible, loving grandfather -- betrays her. Villains are comically exaggerated stereotypes but effectively embody the callousness, greed, and mean-spiritedness of those willing to exploit nature. A team of animal advocates is portrayed as comic and good-hearted but also bumbling and ineffectual.

Violence & Scariness

Intense, disturbing violence against animals, who wail in pain. Pigs are held captive, marched to slaughter, and subject to cruel handling: prodded with electricity, kicked, beaten, forced to mate, and ultimately shot in the head. Young human heroine is frequently in danger and is hurt: falls down a steep mountainside and dangles until pulled to safety; jumps onto a moving truck and is endangered in a wild ride. Other violent incidents include animals stampeding; chases and havoc in a shopping mall; gunplay and chaos in a parade.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent profanity and cursing: "f--k" in all forms, "s--t," "Jesus Christ," "goddammit," "bitch," "hell." Pig farts.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Alcoholic beverages in several scenes. One featured character is an out-of-control drunk. Cigarette smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Okja isn't a movie for kids. Despite the family-friendly poster of a giant pig and a little girl, and though it has many comic elements, it's an extremely intense, violent film about cruelty to animals in a world in which corporations wreak havoc on the planet. After a brief intro to the science behind the "breeding" of some superpigs, the movie moves to a beautiful Korean mountainside where the young heroine and her devoted 10-year-old superpig, Okja, romp and reveal their unique friendship. What follows, in great contrast, is a frightening journey in which the girl tries to save her pet from a horrific fate at the hands of an outrageous corporate villain, aided only by a group of well-meaning but foolish animal activists. Along the way, the girl is chased, hurt, and -- spoiler alert -- narrowly escapes death. Okja and others of his species are subject to barbaric physical experimentation and beatings, then pushed to a painful, inhumane fate. The animal cries are piercing and upsetting. Frequent profanity includes "s--t," "bitch," "hell," and many uses of "f--k." One character drinks and gets very drunk, resulting in outrageous bad behavior. In some scenes, English subtitles are used to translate from Korean. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 21 parent reviews

Tells about the greed of the Meat industry

What's the story.

To gain notoriety and universal support for its megalomaniac leader ( Tilda Swinton ), the Mirando Corporation, a mammoth business with a checkered past, announces the arrival of the company's 26 superpigs in OKJA. Calling them "Mother Nature's Gifts" and the answer to the world's dwindling food supply, the adorable little pigs will be sent out to 26 countries to live with 26 families, and after 10 years of nurturing, the superest pig of all will return to NYC and be crowned. The 10 years pass. One of the enormous grown-up pigs, Okja, is living an idyllic life on a mountaintop in Korea with young Mija (An Seu Hyun, who breaks your heart) and her grandfather. The idyll doesn't last very long. Okja's progress has been charted, and the female superpig has been chosen to make the journey to New York City. When a small army of escorts, including TV celebrity Johnny ( Jake Gyllenhaal ), host of Dr. Johnny's Animal Magic , arrives at their home, Mija is tricked and Okja is taken away from her. The steadfast girl gives chase -- all the way to Seoul, South Korea's capitol, where Okja's appearance and Mia's efforts to rescue her create chaos. Only a bizarre band of animal rights activists, led by Jay ( Paul Dano ), appear to help her. Unfortunately, Mija is too trusting once again, and, once again tricked, she finds herself in dire straits. It's one narrow escape after another; until she's reunited with her precious Okja, Mija must face their greatest enemy: the Mirando Corporation and its harsh CEO. In New York City, the cruel intentions of the company are revealed and Mija must risk all once again to save her beloved friend.

Is It Any Good?

Alongside some outrageous comic performances and a lovely connection between a young girl and her giant pet pig lives a big, violent, imaginative ecological fable guaranteed to touch hearts. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho has created a timely movie with larger-than-life villains; a calamitous, one-sided depiction of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) as an optional food supply; and a traditional "prince fights a dragon to save the princess" story at its heart. In this story , the "prince" is a little girl; the "dragon" is Tilda Swinton in a dual role, and the "princess" is an adorably lovable enormous pig. The director and his team have mastered the art of combining satire with farce and then hitting hard with solid notions about man's greed and his ability to destroy everything beautiful in his path. For families hoping to enjoy the fable and its messages with their younger kids, Okja is far too intense, violent, and fraught with animals under siege to make that work. The film is for mature teens only.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Okja . Even though in its way this movie is a fairy tale, why is the violence so disturbing? How does the defenselessness of animals increase our empathy?

In what way or ways did this movie have a happy ending? In what ways did it not? What was your final takeaway?

Use your response to this film to find out more about GMOs (genetically modified organisms). What are some of the pros and cons associated with GMOs in our food supply?

Which positive character traits does Mija display?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : June 28, 2017
• Cast : An Seo Hyun , Tilda Swinton , Jake Gyllenhaal , Paul Dano
• Director : Joon-ho Bong
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Adventures , Friendship , Great Girl Role Models , Science and Nature
• Character Strengths : Courage , Integrity
• Run time : 118 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 18, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Review: ‘Carol Doda Topless at the Condor’ takes a fresh, frisky look at a 1960s rebel

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San Francisco’s own Botticelli’s Venus was nightclub dancing goddess Carol Doda , her scallop shell a white baby grand piano supported by hydraulics and descending from a hole in the ceiling rather than surfacing from the sea. But also, in perhaps the key difference from that painting, hardly so modest as to cover her breasts with a coy hand.

After all, Doda delivered herself here to shimmy topless, and in being the first to do so, shook up 1960s culture as well. The Golden Gate may have been the only attraction more popular in the Bay Area, but from her perch at the Condor in the lively North Beach entertainment scene, Doda’s celebrity was a bridge too, to a new era of sexual liberation. The story of her rise from waitress to wowza in a turbulent era — and all the ways her revolution excited and was exploited — is engagingly told in the frisky, funny, archive-rich look-back “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” from filmmakers Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker .

Like one of those energetic Martin Scorsese montages where we’re privy to how a vibrant underground ecosystem works, the documentary pulls us inside a partying milieu of lights, stage gimmicks, fad dances and tough, colorful characters, a handful of whom are interviewed here alongside a few cultural commentators. That’s because Doda forgoing pasties on June 19, 1964, may have ignited a craze — topless bands, topless shoeshines, a topless clam chowder joint and, eventually, bottomlessness — but as the film vigorously posits, it also reflected a wider societal shift, of people unburdening themselves from old ways, fighting for civil rights and equal rights and against war. And, as Doda once was, getting arrested for it too.

When Doda went big, she also did the American thing of going bigger, turning to dozens of silicone injections (her own hydraulics, in a way) that gave new meaning to the pair of consonants in her last name. The lines outside swelled too. Be forewarned that for all the plentiful nudity in “Carol Doda,” there’s also a surgery clip of what those injections looked like, and a grim side-effects story from similarly augmented exotic dancer Judy Mamou that makes clear the risk so many women went through to change their bodies.

Review: An investigator on a cold case finds isolation in an outback town called ‘Limbo’

Simon Baker and Natasha Wanganeen deliver a pair of remarkably synchronized, understated performances in director Ivan Sen’s “Limbo,” as much last-chance western as stark crime drama.

March 21, 2024

If Doda ultimately comes off as barely more (ahem) fleshed-out than the snapshot of an unflappable, charismatic, competitive workhorse we’re introduced to, it’s hardly for lack of trying on the directors’ part. In becoming famous for baring all, we sense, she remained adept at giving away very little, save the bits and pieces that the interviewees who knew her can recall gleaning: probably an abusive childhood, clearly a bad early marriage, a rarely satisfying dating life. (Even alone, sleeping with what she referred to as “them” didn’t sound so easy.)

Rather, she lived to perform, returning an insistent male gaze with a chest-forward independence that only burnished her global recognition. Today’s ever-sharing online influencers would hardly recognize her kind of cagey public personality (something one could argue she helped pioneer as well). It’s appealing to watch her in archived interviews bat away questions with wry shtick and terse honesty about her notoriety. If we’re made to detect pity toward her about anything from the film’s adoring tone, it’s that Doda wasn’t the greatest at diversifying or monetizing her appeal — getting out of the Condor took decades, well into North Beach’s swerve toward ever more dangerous sleaze-ification.

The attempts to paint Doda, who died in 2015, as a feminist trailblazer (especially from one enthusiastic on-camera cultural critic) can feel a tad oversold — the reality of her choices is as complicated as they can seem invigorating. But as a portrait of an offbeat showbiz world pushing the boundaries of expression, led by a no-holds-barred icon, “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” is a buoyant tribute to a life of exposure.

“Carol Doda Topless at the Condor”

Rated: R, for nudity/graphic nudity throughout, some sexual material, language and drug content Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes Playing: Starts Friday, Landmark Nuart, West L.A.

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Laurence Fishburne’s solo show somehow needs more Laurence Fishburne

In ‘like they do in the movies,’ the actor shares anecdotes of his upbringing and rise to stardom but mixes it with too many side characters.

NEW YORK — In his new solo show “Like They Do in the Movies,” acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne promises a vulnerable evening of storytelling about his family, his purpose and the people who influenced his career. In actuality, he spends it blurring anecdotes about those creative origins with vignettes starring memorable strangers. Some stories are true, some are fiction, some dwell in the murky middle.

He performs all with the precision you’d expect of such an impeccable talent, but the double act — of pulling us into his autobiographical story and then keeping us at arm’s length — is puzzling. Most of us have already spent a lifetime watching him embody others. “Like They Do” is precious time with just him. Why waste it?

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There is nothing fantastical about the physical presentation. Scenic designer Neil Patel never adorns the blunt, oblong Perelman Performing Arts Center stage with more than a simple desk and a chair or two. Behind Fishburne, an illuminated frame — which chummily mirrors a movie theater screen — floats just above the stage floor. Aside from images of Fishburne’s ancestors, which are sometimes projected, the rigidness of it all does nothing to warm us to his story. The theatrics are reserved solely for the thespian.

Fishburne powers through the dense volume of speech like the charmster he is. He opens the show by detailing his childhood years, toggling between his mentally unstable force of a mother, Hattie, and boisterous Casanova of father, Big Fish. Their eccentricities, and perhaps a pinch of Hattie’s projected fantasies of being a performer, drive Fishburne’s involvement in the dramatic arts.

Fishburne remains spirited and tactile; we see him touching, stroking, lifting objects that aren’t actually present. He is generous with his affability, always asking the audience how we’re doing and softening any TED Talk didacticism with “Reading Rainbow” coziness. We are his friends, his family, even his “baby” for these two hours and 20 minutes. Fishburne keeps up this para-familiarity even when dipping into harder truths, most notably that he was sexually abused by Hattie as a child. Never one to keep audiences perturbed for too long, he repeatedly stopgaps staggering revelations like this with a pacifier: “More on that later.”

“More” is truly the operative word. Because these are not short spews of text Fishburne has penned for us; they are run on sentences and legato soliloquies. Mercifully, director Leonard Foglia (Fishburne’s longtime collaborator) keeps everything moving at a brisk pace, but the challenge is evident. Case in point, at the performance I attended Fishburne called out to a stage manager in the shadows for his next line more than once.

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He becomes different races and ages, adopting novel dialects and cadences like the great monologists before him: Whoopi Goldberg, John Leguizamo, Anna Deavere Smith, all of whom Fishburne thank in the show’s program. During a scene involving one of those side characters, he becomes Joseph, a man who withstands unthinkable hardship while trying to escape New Orleans for Baton Rouge during Hurricane Katrina. In real life, Fishburne was a French Quarter resident in 2005, and has fundraised for post-hurricane relief. In another scene, Fishburne becomes Marcus, an American expat in Australia who proudly owns a brothel, traffics in pleasure and marries a beautiful sex worker. In real life, one of Fishburne’s daughters, Montana, worked as a sex worker and adopted the name Chippy D for her adult films. These are lush, thoughtful portrayals, but talent is no longer something he has to prove. And presumably he has some connection to these tales, but Fishburne never makes it clear.

As the play reaches its conclusion, the real Laurence Fishburne returns to us, asking permission to delve back into the story of his parents (as if we haven’t been telepathically begging him to). As he breaks down Hattie’s mental disorder, he descends into a deep squat, and then even lower, sitting cross-legged on the stage floor. He brings us closer to eye level, no longer a Hollywood star or theater titan, but a son enraptured by memories of his complicated, impossible, formidable mother.

That initial pledge of nonstop vulnerability is not completely fulfilled, but Fishburne has poured out a bit of his heart and channeled the stories of others, exactly like he’s always done in the movies.

Like They Do in the Movies , through March 31 at Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. Two hours and 20 minutes, with an intermission. pacnyc.org .

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‘Limbo’ Review: Pensive in the Outback

Long on atmosphere and short on plot, this stylish Australian noir pulls through thanks to a haunted performance by Simon Baker.

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By Elisabeth Vincentelli

Those who know Simon Baker only as the sleek title character on the TV series “The Mentalist” might do a double take when they discover his Travis, a stern detective sent out to close a 20-year-old cold case in Ivan Sen’s “Limbo.” Projecting an austere, old-fashioned gravitas, the actor calmly stitches conventional markers from the Genre 101 textbook (drug habit, terseness, tattoos, broken relationships) into a whole that feels organic and lived in.

Archetypes are very much on the mind of Sen, an Indigenous Australian filmmaker whose best-known movies, “Mystery Road” (2013) and “Goldstone ” (2018), are often called neo-noir, though they’re equally neo-western. At its best, his work lays bare his country’s poisoned roots in striking tableaux. Here, Travis tries to figure out what happened to a First Nations girl who went missing in the titular desert mining town — the movie was shot in Coober Pedy, a surreal outpost where many facilities, including pubs and hotels, are underground, creating a feeling of simultaneous openness and claustrophobia. But the solving of the mystery takes a back seat to Travis’s relationship with the girl’s siblings, Charlie (Rob Collins) and Emma (Natasha Wanganeen), who must navigate their distrust.

Sen, who also handled both the black-and-white cinematography and the editing, has a terrific eye for shot composition and sets a deliberate pace that feels implacable rather than merely slow. Tellingly, “Limbo” is more effective in building atmosphere than in plotting, but it’s hard not to want to know more about the haunted people we barely got to meet.

Limbo Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters.

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