Sundance 2022 Day 7 Recap

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival is finally winding down and we only have a couple of movies left to review. Yesterday brought us our final horror film of the festival Piggy and a portrayal of female friendship in Am I Ok? Check out my thoughts below on each and come back tomorrow for more reviews.

PIGGY

Sara (Laura Galán) is an overweight teenager who is constantly being bullied by a group of mean girls in her neighborhood. They've nicknamed her Piggy and are determined to make her life a living hell every chance they get. One day, their tormenting goes too far and they nearly drown her. A strange man witnesses the event and decides to take swift and violent action against the clique and spares Sara. Sara is then left with the choice of speaking up to save the girls or protecting the man who saved her from their anguish. Piggy is a no-frills, brutal horror that works really well...until its ending which totally undercuts the rest of the film. It's a great look at the horrors of bullying because Sara was more endangered by them than the murderous psycho. You truly feel Sara's fear and anger which makes the ending feels too conventional and unearned after what transpired before. To go into specifics would ruin the film, but had the ending gone a different way it could have reached Midsommar cult status, but instead will probably be forgotten with how safe it plays it. RATING: 6/10

AM I OK?

Am I Ok? centers on the friendship of Lucy and Jane, two women who think they know everything there is to know about one another. However, everything changes when Jane gets offered a promotion overseas in London, meanwhile Lucy finally earns the courage to tell her a secret she's been keeping: she's unsure of her sexuality and thinks she might not be straight. Am I Ok? benefits from two really great performances by Dakota Johnson and Sonoya Mizuno, as well as a refreshing tone that keeps the proceedings feeling light, yet also real and relatable. It never gets bogged down and explores Lucy's late coming of age in a way that feels honest and authentic. At its heart, it's a celebration of friendship and self-discovery and for the most part, it really works. The only part that doesn't feel genuine is the conflict that eventually arises between the two women that just feels manufactured for the sake of needing some sort of drama before the finale. But honestly, movies like this feel like a rarity these days and even if sometimes Am I Ok? leans too much into predictability, it still was pretty delightful on the whole. RATING: 7/10