Sundance 2022: Piggy Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Every once in a while, a film comes along and defies expectations. Piggy, based on writer/director Carlota Pereda’s short film of the same name, is the latest example. Based on the film’s title and promotional material, it is easy to expect one thing but the film ended up being something else. This Spanish horror film is a revenge tale that will not be for the feint of heart but whose underlying message will surely still resonate despite the fact that it fails to truly deliver that message. At the end of the day, its success rests solely on the strength of the connection between audiences and the film’s main character who isn’t as active of a participant in the story as it seemed like they would be, which was disappointing. Nevertheless, Laura Galán certainly give it her all as the heart of the film, delivering a great lead performance that grounds the chaos.

Piggy follows an overweight teen girl named Sara (Galán) who was bullied for most of her life by the other girls in her neighborhood over her weight. Working at her family butcher shop, piggy was an easy insult. One day after fleeing those aforementioned girls at the town pool, she came across a mysterious man with devious motives who drove off with one of her tormentors. From there, Sara found herself in the middle of a mystery that consumed her town while becoming the target of the local police and their questions. This mystery quickly escalated as she found herself in the middle of an inner conflict where she had to choose between doing the right thing and maintaining a newfound allegiance with the man who saved her life. Nevertheless, there was a connection there and her young age meant that she maybe wasn’t sure what to do about it. Instead of addressing the bullying aspect, the film was Sara’s internal conflict as the absence of the cloud created by her bullies allowed for some compelling moments of self-reflection that saw her vulnerable in a way unlike before but the problem with that was the film did not go nearly deep enough with that.

In the end, the best part of Piggy was the great performance from Galán as Sara. She was a compelling character to watch despite the film taking too long to get going and figuring out what it wanted to be. In the meantime, she carried the emotion but for the longest time, the film did next to nothing with it. Once it did all come together, it was still somewhat powerful. However, it was not nearly as powerful as it could have been.

Piggy should be applauded for what it was trying to do even though it didn’t quite work.

*still courtesy of Sundance

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.