In Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, the 17th incarnation of Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is haunted by a foundational trauma from back home on Earth. Mickey has convinced himself that his string of fatefully bad luck stems from pushing a button inside his mom’s car that led to her death. Mickey 18 (also played by Robert Pattinson) dryly offers that the real culprit was an automaker’s defect. It’s this small but telling detail that distills the central conflict of not only the film, but Bong’s whole filmography.
This learned helplessness at the hands of mighty institutions has long been a focus of director Bong’s astutely observed social satires. Gnawing away at the beating, bleeding heart of Mickey 17 is a tragic contradiction: People trap themselves in cycles of eternal recurrence for failings that are not their own. They internalize the flawed logic that powers such systems as capitalism, governments, or religions and let it drive them to destructive ends.
