Okja is not only the successor to Bong Joon-ho's excellent 2014 film Snowpiercer, but also Netflix's first stab at the festival circuit. The streaming service had made stabs at art films previously with Beasts of No Nation as well as numerous Sundance acquisitions earlier this year, but Okja's position in the Competition for Cannes's Palme d'Or was a big enough deal that its very inclusion proved controversial.
It's an absurd controversy, frankly, as a film is a film regardless of where it's viewed, and Bong's reputation is enough to have earned that Competition slot on its own. Indeed, Okja's environmentalist moralizing suits it to film festival awards just as well as its exciting spectacle suits it for widespread popularity, and it's no surprise that many were immediately won over. Unfortunately, as exciting, funny, and technically accomplished as Okja is, it's all brought down by heavy-handed, one-sided moralizing which at times borders on manipulative.
