IMDB.com has this as a descriptive sentence for the new Netflix Original movie, Okja: “Meet Mija, a young girl who risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a fascinating animal named Okja.”
Sounds like it could be a Disney Family Masterpiece, doesn’t it?
And Netflix has its own blurb: “ A gentle giant and the girl who raised her are caught in the crossfire between animal activism, corporate greed and scientific ethics.”
The lack of an Oxford comma aside, what these descriptions mostly lack is a warning as to why the film is rated TV-MA.
Let me fix that.
While the themes are semi-adult, and there are scenes of physical peril, the most-obvious reason for recommending this kid-centric movie for mature audiences only is the over-abundance of vulgar language.
It’s so sad, too, because it’s so unnecessary. The film could have been made, and had just as much of an emotional impact, without a single F-bomb. In fact, I submit that the impact would have been stronger without the distraction of four-letter words, some of which I was forced to read instead of just hear, as they were spoken in Korean and read in English subtitles.
Netflix may think Okja demonstrates a bold and true-to-life attitude toward story-telling, but all the filmmakers are really demonstrating is their laziness.
