Cochonne

"Piggy" is an interesting flick that could have been better. It's the kind of movie where you wish a different, more capable filmmaker had been given the job of making a movie with the same themes. It evokes real-life issues but doesn't really say much about them. In that regard it is almost annoying.

Sara is an overweight girl living in small-town Spain where she is bullied by girls who nicknamed her Piggy. One day she decides to go to the pool, where she encounters her bullies. They harass her with horrible verbal humiliation, and then even attempt to drown her.

Sara later sees that the girls have been kidnapped, seeing them taken away in a van. She ignores their pleas for help and decides not to tell anyone what happened.

Sara, the titular "Piggy", is a rare survivor of bullying who gets the opportunity to take revenge. She was entirely at the mercy of her bullies, but they end up in an even more precarious position in front of her.

One problem with the movie is that we never really feel for Sara, despite seeing the nightmare the other girls put her through. The movie depicts her at an odd distance, seemingly assigning us the role of bully too. Bullies don't see the real person, they just see whatever the dislike about themselves, and go after it. We never really see Sara as a real person either.

It feels like the movie raises genuinely timely issues but doesn't really do anything with them. It's also never really convincing. The filmmakers needed to engage us on the character level, to put us in Sara's world. But hardly any of them seem to know how to do that.

From technical point of view, the movie is probably 6 stars movie. However, the movie does small and little things right and it does the basic stuff right. After the final act, it almost feels like I want to give it 8 because the movie concludes everything what is required considering what the movie gives at the first act. Story gets captivating to follow that what is going to happen next. It's actually brilliant in that sense.

The movie is cruel in places but I suppose that it is the purpose of the movie and thus it delivers what it's expected. What comes to violence or gore, I think that it's managed very well. Not too little or not too much but good balance in right places.

Laura Galan (Sara) makes actually superb performance. She plays her part very well and I think she manages to kind of trick the viewer by the end of the movie. Too bad that the villain is not that convincing since it's almost like a the beauty and the beast kind of story. I also did like Carmen Machi (Sara's mother). She plays her part very well. I think she actually turns some things in the movie to comedy but at the same time she's very convincing.

The movie would be totally 8 starts or even 9 with a little bit of bigger budget and little bit of refinement in the overall production. Go and see it.

This is a delightful, grim tale of a lone fat girl who is bullied by everyone around her except her dear, sweet dad - and the killer. Great cinematography and acting are well directed; it is all encapsulated by a beautiful countryside. Sara tries her hardest to just live her life but she's bullied when she goes out and berated at home. After a particularly harrowing version of the daily insults she endures the very girls who were tormenting her a moment ago are now snatched up by the serial killer who watched as they belittled and tortured her. Sara knows. Sara saw them in his van. And he stops the van and leaves her a towel to cover herself because the bully girls stole her clothes. Her dilemma is whether to tell what she knows and therefore save their wretched selves or keep mum and keep her admittedly evil savior.

I had to watch it dubbed in English but expected the dub to be good like any other english dubbed film out today, that was not the case for this film. The English dub is possibly the worst I've ever heard in any film. The people they chose to do the voices were awful and turned a drama into a kid's comedy. Seriously it felt like I was watching a straight up comedy film because the voices were so ridiculously over the top and awful as they didn't match the ages of the characters and it was not natural sounding. They used a grown woman for a little boy's voice and a young woman for the older woman playing the mother. Absolutely could not get past that at all. Made what should have been a serious drama into a joke. You could have hired anyone else and it would have been better than this. Aside from that, the film itself was decent. The acting from all was fairly realistic and I think it was an interesting take on bullying with a twist.

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"PIGGY is the right type of film to be one of the last movies in an event such as the Sundance Film Festival. Carlota Pereda takes advantage of the terrific lead performance from Laura Galán, and delivers a shocking, violent, frighteningly grounded story about bullying, fat-shaming, and self-acceptance.

Despite taking a more revenge-driven approach, the filmmaker beautifully develops the moral concepts at hand. The romantic subplot doesn't really work, though, and the film would have benefited from a stronger atmosphere. In addition to this, just a couple of impactful dialogues surrounding the main themes would have drastically improved the overall piece.

Still, it's definitely a must-watch."

Rating: B+