Our beloved and eternal Edward Cullen (The Twilight Saga), actor Robert Pattison, is responsible for bringing to life the protagonist Mickey in the newest film by Bong Joon-ho (winner of the Oscar for Best Director in 2019 for Parasite).
The film Mickey 17, which premiered in Brazil on March 6, continues with some of the director’s characteristic aspects, as it continues to address many social criticisms, but the public has noticed big changes in the approach to these criticisms from the way Bong used to do it. Is this change in style permanent? This question has been dividing opinions and even affecting the box office figures, which will result in the film being delivered quickly to the streaming platforms.
The film features well-known and beloved names from the film industry, such as Mark Ruffalo (Hulk) as the scheming politician Kenneth Marshall, Toni Collette (Hereditary) as the politician’s wife, Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) as Mickey’s best friend Timo, and Naomie Ackie (Blink Twice) as Nasha, the protagonist’s girlfriend.
The plot
The film tells the story of Mickey Barnes, an ordinary person with no great physical or intellectual attributes, who lived a mediocre life on Earth. However, after he and his best friend Timo acquired a debt with a dangerous loan shark, they both decided to apply to take part in the human colonization program on the planet Niflheim.
When Mickey signed up for the program, he didn’t pay any attention to the terms of the contract when signing up to be a “disposable” – since this role consisted of a person designated to die, be subjected to tests, exposed to diseases and dangerous situations or used in experiments – all in the name of science. So he was a kind of human lab rat, but despite dying on suicide missions, his body was cloned and his memories and consciousness were uploaded into this new body.
The protagonist lived a life similar to the term “disposable”, being ignored, belittled or not taken seriously because of his status as a scientific experiment. However, he found comfort and shelter in Nasha – one of the few people who also didn’t submit to the alienation experienced by all the crew aboard on the spaceship around the person who commanded the colonization of Nilfheim.
The narrative gets complicated when Mickey is sent on a mission and, believing that the “disposable” had already died, the scientists make a new clone (Mickey 18) and release him to carry on with his normal life. However, when Mickey comes across his clone, he despairs because of the existence of simultaneous clones, the so-called multiples – that are forbidden to exist. While 18 shows himself to be a much colder person, disgusted with his situation as a “throwaway” and gives up on killing 17, because he understands that the person responsible for his problems is Governor Kenneth Marshall, a profiteering man, an authoritarian governor who didn’t value Mickey’s work.
From then on, the story develops until it reaches its end with predictable climaxes, conflicts and events that have no connection to the plot and are not well developed, being nothing more than loose ends with the potential to become something bigger (such as a brief romance between Kai and Mickey 17).
Perhaps that’s why the director’s fans were disappointed with the movie, since it was common for Bong Joon-Ho to try to leave his criticisms veiled or implied, and he could arrive at a moment of unexpected revelations responsible for making viewers reflect on the social criticisms addressed in his films. This, combined with the predictable ending and without much news, leaves fans in doubt, not knowing if this is a prerogative for the continuation of the movie or simply a new phase for the director.
Social criticism
Considering that the main topic of Bong John’s works is social criticism, we see several of them in the film, including satire on supremacist dictators and allusions to historical events such as Nazism and Fascism. This is presented in the story through the government of Kenneth Marshall, since in his speeches throughout the film he expresses his desire to colonize the planet Nilfheim in a “good” way, through white and intelligent people, even having a personification of those who should populate the planet.
The character Kai is one of the people they were looking for as a model of perfect beings. There are also references to the swastika, the length of the Nazis and the alienation of the population by a leadership figure.
The film also presents sentimental reflections such as how to deal with guilt, the need to be constantly productive and the massive, exploitative world we live in; individualism and a lack of empathy and how this is present in the personality of most of society today and how it only tends to grow in the population over the years.
Despite being extremely topical and relevant criticisms and reflections, they are put across through humor or vague quotes, something that also caused dissatisfaction among the audience, as they were expecting an engaged film with a well-developed social slant.
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The article above was edited by Maria Clara Polcan.
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