Bong Joon Ho on the Political Inspirations of ‘Mickey 17,’ Mark Ruffalo, and the Frailty of Foolish Leaders
Chris O'Falt
VP, Features Strategy
While watching “Mickey 17,” it’s impossible not to make connections to current events. Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall character, a flamboyant and flailing politician leading the sci-fi film’s space expedition toward colonizing an ice planet, has distinctly Trumpian qualities in the way his thin skin manifests itself.
Audiences will also naturally draw a direct connection to the billionaire space exploration of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, with the film’s central conceit that corporations are prepared to look to life beyond Earth as its environment deteriorates. While a guest on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, writer/director Bong Joon Ho admitted via translator that current events did seep their way into “Mickey 17,” just not in the way some are thinking.
“I think probably the pandemic was flowing into this adaptation process,” said Bong, who adapted the screenplay from Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel “Mickey7.” “I wrote the script in 2021. We were in the middle of the pandemic still, so in the film we also see Mickey become the lab rat for all the vaccine tests.”
In the film, Mickey (Robert Pattinson) signs up to be “an expendable,” willing to die and be reprinted (his memories stored on an enormous hard drive) and become a scientist’s vessel to study how to survive their new planet, Niflheim. Mickey’s repeated cycle of lab testing, then painful death, then human reprinting, become the film’s central visual metaphor of dehumanization in this world of exploration fueled by the unholy alliance of religion, corporations, and yes, politics.
Bong said, “I would be lying if I say that we weren’t thinking of the political context and the political atmosphere when creating this.” The director told IndieWire that, in developing the character, he showed Ruffalo videos and photos of a “particular Korean politician,” while the actor showed him photos of an “American governor from back in the day … We weren’t really focusing on serious, heavy dictators. We were actually just focusing on ridiculous clownish politicians and the ridiculous things that they do.”
Marshall’s deep-seated insecurity drives childish behavior and the need for approval in the form of subservient bootlicking, which becomes, in Bong’s film, over-the-top satire. But through the lens of director Bong’s twisted sense of humor, that buffoonery comes from somewhere dark.
“We’ve heard of stories of Hitler when he was in Vienna, getting offended by certain things, and that culminating into other things — not to justify the horrible things that politicians do, but when you go through a lot of trauma, or you feel this inferiority complex against something, and you channel it in that wrong direction, you end up becoming a horrible person and political leader,” said Bong. “And if you think about Marshall, we don’t really know his history, but we can tell that he has a very low sense of self-worth.”
While those characteristics are common among many of our most ridiculous and dangerous politicians — and therefore recognizable — Bong sees Marshall as unique. What appealed to his sense of humor was the way they manifested themselves in his dynamic with his wife, Gwen (Toni Collette). The duo serves as both the film’s villains and comedic foils.
“He always relies on his wife, and it feels like Toni Collette’s character is almost manipulating Marshall, and she’s the one who has control over him,” said Bong. “So this is a unique dictator character that we’re seeing.”
On the surface, Ruffalo seems like an unusual choice for the character, something the actor himself professed to the director after reading the script. The Oscar-nominated actor is not known for comedy nor playing a villain, and yet director Bong, a fan of “Zodiac” and “Foxcatcher,” wrote the role with him in mind.
“For me, it wasn’t important whether or not Mark had done a villain role before he was actually the perfect actor to portray Marshall,” said Bong. “I always thought he was such a great nuanced actor. But there’s this very vulnerable and frail side to him. You can tell that this guy probably gets hurt easily.”
To listen to Bong Joon Ho’s March 7 interview about “Mickey 17,” subscribe to the Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
