So this is a Bong Joon Ho movie, whom you might remember from such movies as Parasite and Snowpiercer. I haven’t seen the latter of those, but my understanding is that it, like Parasite, is a vicious critique of capitalism; I think if I’d been thinking about who was making this movie, I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised by it.

Because the thing is, if you look at the case that the disc comes in, or the Blu-ray menus (I watched a Criterion disc version, which is a little weird for a Netflix Original, but hey), it looks like this pastoral movie about a little girl and her magic animal friend, and I thought it was going to be about her meeting this majestic wild creature and befriending it and all that kind of thing.

But no. The creature is a “super pig,” genetically engineered by a gigantic agribusiness corporation, and sent off to live with the little girl as a PR stunt. And so the movie does spend its opening in that kind of pastoral girl-and-her-animal-friend place, but then takes a sharp, dark left turn into a brutal, cutting satire.

It’s well done, and even where the large beats are familiar, there’s artistry in the details (and great acting from a bunch of great actors, most especially Tilda Swinton’s over-the-top performances). It arguably palms a few cards in making its larger points, but still and all, I suspect that most people come out of this movie feeling just a bit more unsettled about their relationship with the modern food system.