Review: Piggy
A painfully tangible horror drama on the cyclical nature of bullying.
Laura Galan as the tormented Sara in “Piggy.” (Magnet Releasing)
As someone who experienced bullying when I was younger, I can say that while I was able to get over it when it finally stopped, it still was a distressing experience. The feeling of coming into school every day not knowing whether you will be teased or how you will be teased gave me emotional scars that took a while to heal. Those kinds of scars that come with being tormented during the horror show known as adolescence are the basis of the plot for Piggy, Carlota Pereda’s feature adaptation of the 2018 short film of the same name.
In Piggy, Laura Galan plays Sara, a teenager who’s constantly picked on because of her weight. Whether they bully her on social media or in person, her tormentors seize every chance to make her life miserable. On a fateful day where Sara goes for a swim, she encounters a strange man who kidnaps her bullies while on her walk home. When she sees her bullies crying out for help in the man’s van, she still lets the man drive away once he spares her. Afterwards, Sara is left with an ongoing dilemma. Does she let the man keep them captive or do the noble thing and make sure they’re rescued?
Common wisdom suggests that Sara should do the latter because, as awful as her tormentors are, they’re human beings with families and friends concerned for their safety. Although, trying to drown her in the local pool just for laughs all while she’s trying to go for a peaceful swim and posting a picture of her and her family on Instagram with the caption “three little pigs” only push Sara so far that she feels they’re better off in captivity.
After the strange man takes off in his van, Piggy quickly becomes a dramatic morality tale with a horror backdrop. There’s a psychopath on the loose and an “outcast seeks revenge against tormentors” akin to Carrie. Yet, Pereda is more interested in letting the cyclical nature of bullying act as the picture’s true boogeyman as Sara continuously wrestles with carrying out her own form of revenge and becoming the kind of tormentor she despises. Either that or telling the authorities and her difficult mother the truth as a way of breaking the bullying pattern.
Laura Galan etches out Sara’s debacle perfectly as she channels her bruising vulnerability into an unstable ire. When she’s on the verge of doing the right thing, Sara will quickly turn on a dime and defiantly deny any recollection of the kidnapping once she’s pressed by those around her. Galan even reveals a layer of affection to the troubled heroine once a surprising sexual tension between her and the psychopathic stranger begins to form.
Rather than go into how deep this tension goes, it’s best to let the viewer see for themselves. This intricate tale about the psychological ramifications of bullying is painfully tangible but worth a watch for its dynamic central performance and compelling, morally ambiguous drama.
Grade: B+