Butler's Cinema Scene

Okra,An Seo Hyun

“OKJA” My rating: C (Now on Netflix)

118 minutes | No MPAA rating

Following up his multi-layered sci-fi extravaganza “Snowpiercer,” Korean auteur Joon-ho Bong delivers the Netflix original movie “Okja.”

Like its predecessor it blends dystopian imagery, social criticism and first-rate special effects, this time to tell the tale of a girl and her best friend, an elephant-sized pig-creature.

Unlike “Snowpiercer,” though, the pieces don’t fit together. Satire, childlike innocence and violence collide in an adventure nearly derailed by jarring tonal shifts.

The film begins with Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), the head of the massive agribusiness that bears her family name (it sounds like Monsanto for a reason), announcing to the world that her firm has developed a super pig that will solve all our food needs.  To kick off the project she is sending baby pigs to farmers in 26 countries; over 10 years these porkers will be monitored as they are reared under local animal husbandry conditions.

The piglet Okja is blessed to be sent to the mountains of Korea where she is seen to by young Mija (An Seo Hyun) and her grandfather.  Mirja and the massive Okja lead a life of bucolic bliss.  They are best friends — though Bong is careful not to ascribe to Okja human intellect.

Of course, Mija doesn’t know that her big bud is destined to become superbacon.

“Okra” treads a familiar path when it becomes the tale of a fugitive child and her pet outrunning the evil forces of grown-up life.  But Bong isn’t really all that interested in that plot line, preferring to devote much screen time to a ham-handed (sorry about that) satire of corporate greed, human vanity and nitwit idealism.

Tilda Swinton

On the one side is Swinton’s Lucy,  consumed by an inferiority complex and desperate for praise from any and every quarter (did Bong write his screenplay before Trump assumed the presidency?). She has a crew of fawning yes men, played by the likes of Shirley Henderson, Giancarlo Esposito and Jake Gyllenhaal as a boorish/goofy TV zoologist who never changes out of his cargo shorts. Lucy also has an army of mercenaries called the Black Chalk…which sounds a lot like Blackwater, the American security firm accused of all sorts of atrocities during the occupation of Iraq.

On the other side is a ragtag bunch of animal rights activists trying to infiltrate Miranda’s top-secret slaughterhouse. They’re led by Jay (Paul Dano), who has a messianic complex of his own, abetted by Steven Yeun (late of “Walking Dead”) and Lily Collins.

“Okja” only really works when it’s examining the pig/girl relationship.  Young Hyun is a terrific little actress who says volumes without uttering a word; the animated Okra is a totally believable creation, a sort of whale-sized hippo who likes having her tummy rubbed and who farts in foghorn blasts.

Pitted against them are adult performers toiling to be funny and failing miserably.  It’s not like there’s not a great satire lurking in the agribusiness world…this just isn’t it.

And you’ve got to wonder just what audience “Okja” is aimed at.  The core of the tale will appeal to kids, yet the film is filled with f-bombs.

“Okra” suffers from one miscalculation after another. Turns out Netflix is the perfect home for it…not sure it would make it in the theaters.

| Robert W. Butler