In the not too distant future, the human population has continued to grow and overcrowding is becoming a serious problem. With this in mind, the CEO of a major corporation starts a project involving growing large creatures called super-pigs to help combat a diminishing amount of food in the world. Tilda Swinton plays Lucy Mirando, who runs the massive Mirando Company that her father started. That father is never shown but it is said that he, and Lucy’s twin sister who ran the company before her, were both heartless industrialists. Lucy tries to turn this image around by hosting a competition involving local farmers from several countries raising their own super-pig for ten years. One of these pigs, Okja, gets sent to Korea and is the main focus of the story.
There is then a ten year jump with Okja having grown to a massive size while in the care of an old farmer and his granddaughter Mija, played by Ahn Seo-hyun. Okja and Mija’s relationship is one of the more endearing pieces of the film. The two of them have a great friendship and it crushes them both to be torn apart from each other by the Mirando company once the ten-year time limit is up. The Mirando company retakes Okja only for a bumbling squad of folks from the Animal Liberation Front (or ALF) to intercept and put their own plan into motion. There are a few different ALF members but none of them play any major role aside from the leader Jay, who is played by Paul Dano. Dano gives an obnoxiously saccharine and tongue-in-cheek performance, as do the rest of the actors playing members of the ALF.
Mirando has a team of cronies who are also awfully portrayed. Giancarlo Esposito acts as Frank, who seems to be Mirando’s second-in-command, and probably does the best acting job of the entire movie. That is not saying much as this is only true because of how over-the-top every other performance is. The other major members of Mirando’s team are Dr. Johnny Wilcox, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and Jennifer played by Shirley Henderson. The less said about these performances the better. Wilcox is constantly screaming and jumping around, begging for attention and love from anybody he meets, and it simply is nightmarish to watch. Jennifer is Mirando’s assistant who is constantly going on and on about keeping things on schedule and how everything has to go just right. Henderson’s performance is obnoxious due to a strange effect on her voice. It does not sound like Shirley Henderson’s natural voice so it is either one she chose to put-on or her voice was artificially altered to sound lighter and squeakier. I suppose that these two characters are meant to be funny, but they are not.
A lot of what is supposed to be funny in OKJA is not. The ALF members are ridiculous and the actors playing them give nonsensical performances involving a lot of screaming and overacting. Lucy Mirando is melodramatic in every scene she’s in. There are some funny moments but these are never the result of obvious comic relief characters like Wilcox. The majority of the acting on display is almost cartoon-ish aside from the titular super-pig herself. Okja’s animation is commendable and it is impressive how much emotion the animators were able to bring across. Her eyes in particular look amazing and showcase everything from laziness to severe anguish and rage. The CG super-pig puts in a better performance than every actor in this film.
The final moments of Okja would be soul-crushing and poignant if not for the nonsensicality of everything prior. A massive herd of super-pigs is shown being put through the same abhorrent practices that modern animals endure from factory farms. The problem is that up until now the ALF had been the only representation of any environmentalist concerns and they are always played for laughs or as the butt of jokes. There is a dissonance of tone in this movie due to these attempts at comedy. It is frequently hard to tell what to laugh at and when to grimace. There is a very vile scene of Okja being forcibly mated with by a male super-pig which would be fairly horrific if not for Wilcox’s antics accompanying it and the over-dramatic acting from the members of the ALF whilst this is occurring. This is either an example of a director not knowing how to set a tone or of horrible acting from everyone involved.
The final nail in the coffin is the soundtrack which rarely matches the mood of what is happening on screen. There are a lot of loud horns which really start to become painful to the ears by the end of the film. The only portions where the soundtrack is well-done are the opening moments with Okja and Mija wandering around the forest together. OKJA has a bizarre plot with similarly bizarre characters and this would all be fine if there was not a complete turn in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The attempt to tug on audience heartstrings by showing the slaughterhouse feels very out of place after the nonsense that preceded it. This lack of coherency and the truly dreadful performances earn this production a 2/5.
