Netflix’s Okja is a movie of contrasts, but is oddly compelling

Netflix’s Okja is a film that allows director Bong Joon-Ho to draw sharp contrasts from scene to scene and even from moment to moment.

Warning: this post contains spoilers for the Netflix film Okja.

Even in the trailer for Okja on Netflix, it was easy to see that the movie played the ideas of nature and science against each other. In the first few minutes, Tilda Swinton’s Lucy Mirando says that the titular animal is the child of a “super pig” found in Chile. Not long after we first meet Okja in her current habitat, we learn that that’s not true — that she’s genetically modified, but for the purposes of branding, people can’t know what she is. (Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?)

Indeed, the battle between science and nature when it comes to marketing is just one instance of one of the greater themes of the film. The contrasts ultimately bring the idea of the facade to the forefront. Many of the characters in the film are not what they seem. Lucy has a public face and a private one. The members of the ALF (an animal rights group trying to rescue Okja) might talk a good game, but they do things that are morally ambiguous or even flat-out wrong.

Bong Joon-Ho’s direction makes these fronts sharply apparent. In the first three scenes, he moves from a dark, dingy factory to the mountains of South Korea and then into the ultra-modern Seoul, and those juxtapositions contribute to the story just as much as the character work does.

Of course, some excellent performances help. An Seo Hyun, the young actress who plays Mija, Okja’s character, holds her own against older actors like Steven Yeun, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tilda Swinton. Swinton, of course, steals the show in every scene she’s in, but can you blame her? She’s having a lot of fun in the role. Her main character is alternately bright and happy and then dropping f-bombs in private. (Her other character doesn’t show up until the very end, but suffice it to say Swinton differentiates them very neatly.) Gyllenhaal, in particular, does a great job as Dr. Johnny, “the face of Mirando,” a TV host, using a hilariously high-pitched voice for the most part. His performance is perhaps the most comedic of them all, but he isn’t above getting a little dark.

Although the colors may be bright, they, too, hide some pretty upsetting things. The film is pretty open about how horrifying Okja’s experiences are when she’s at a Mirando lab. The ALF members even get to comment on it. And then, of course, act how you might not expect them to act. Paul Dano’s Jay has a wonderfully measured calm demeanor, which underscores the absurdity of his contradictory actions.

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The movie runs just over two hours, but it doesn’t feel like it holds on for too long. Bong doesn’t add in unnecessary scenes; the acting, as said above, is compelling all around, and there are even sharp bursts of action to counterpoint things.

Overall, Okja might be a little absurd, but it’s a great movie.