Breaking down the optimistic conclusion to Bong Joon Ho's 'Mickey 17.'
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Mickey 17.
In a 2019 interview pegged to the release of his Oscar-winning film Parasite, the first foreign-language movie to ever take home the Academy Award for Best Picture, filmmaker Bong Joon-ho reflected on why the South Korea-set black comedy seemed to be resonating so deeply with audiences not just in Korea, but around the world. “Essentially,” he said, “we all live in the same country, called Capitalism.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Given his previous exploration of social inequality and class struggle in the 2013 apocalyptic action thriller Snowpiercer, 2017 animal rights fable Okja, and more, it’s no secret that Bong’s body of work frequently takes aim at the brutalities of life under such an oppressively hierarchal system. But this time around, his new English-language feature Mickey 17, now in theaters, posits that humanity may soon find a way to extend capitalism’s cruel reach to the far corners of outer space.
Based on Ashton Edward’s 2022 novel Mickey7, the sci-fi satire, which opens in the year 2054, centers on Robert Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes, a down-on-his-luck schlub desperate to escape the clutches of a loan shark whose chainsaw-wielding henchmen are after the money their boss is owed for helping Mickey and his slippery business partner/frenemy Timo (Steven Yeun) open a now-failed macaron shop. The pair decide to sign up for an intergalactic colonizing expedition bound for the distant ice planet of Niflheim. But while Timo gets a gig as a pilot, Mickey thinks so little of himself he decides to volunteer for the role of “expendable.” That means Mickey’s job is to die, over and over again.
Whether it’s accidental or in the name of scientific research, Mickey is routinely subjected to agonizing, terrifying, and dehumanizing ends. Once he’s dead (or sometimes only almost dead), he’s tossed into a churning fire pit called the “cycler” alongside the rest of the ship’s organic waste, reprinted as a new Mickey, artificially imbued with his memories and consciousness, and sent back to work. Mickey’s one solace throughout the four-and-a-third-year journey to Niflheim is his romance with security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie), the only crew member who thinks of every version of him as a person rather than a human guinea pig.
Read More: Double Robert Pattinsons Are the Chief Reason to See Mickey 17
The expedition is led by blowhard failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a two-time congressional election loser whose ethics, mannerisms, and red cap-sporting followers bear some pretty striking similarities to those of a certain sitting U.S. president (although Bong has said the character wasn’t inspired by Trump). Marshall, along with his far savvier—and bizarrely sauce-obsessed—wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), are determined to establish a genetically “pure” colony of disciples who will live under their despotic rule.
After the 17th iteration of Mickey inadvertently survives what should’ve been a lethal exploration mission on Niflheim thanks to the amiable nature of the planet’s native species of shaggy, pill bug-esque “creepers,” a preemptive printing of Mickey 18 (also Pattinson) results in a bit of a conundrum for the forbidden “multiples.” The pair is eventually thrust into the crosshairs of the Marshalls’ war on the creepers, a conflict that gives way to what is perhaps Bong’s most hopeful film ending to date.
Considering the movie’s release was delayed by nearly a year, it feels as though Mickey 17, the script for which was completed in September 2021 and which wrapped filming in January 2023, was intended to be released into a world where Trump had not (yet) won the 2024 presidential election. So how much emotional mileage you get out of the idea of the oppressed good guys joining forces with the othered aliens to defeat the big, bad fascist likely depends on your outlook on the current political landscape.
Still, Mickey’s personal journey from self-hating nihilist to unlikely hero with a newfound awareness of his worth leads to an uncharacteristically optimistic denouement from Bong. In the end, the society that’s formed on Niflheim opts to not only live in peaceful concert with the creepers, but also to demolish the technology that allowed for Mickey to become an expendable in the first place. And Mickey himself is the one to pull the trigger.
“I just really wanted to prevent this character of Mickey Barnes from being destroyed,” Bong told NPR’s WBFO of the unexpected finale. “You know, he lives a very difficult life. Nothing is easy for him, but I just wanted to stop the world— this harsh world—from destroying this young man.”
