If having a pig nose is what it takes to be wooed by James McAvoy, sign me up please!Generations ago, a witch cast a horrible curse upon the high society Wilhern family: the next Wilhern girl to be born would bear the face of a pig and the curse would only be broken when one of her own loved her unconditionally for all eternity. Through the years, the Wilherns only produced sons, until, finally, Penelope was born, to her parents' dismay, with the snout and ears of a pig.
Once Penelope hit the age of 18, her parents hired a matchmaker to find any aristocratic young man to love and marry Penelope so the curse would be broken, but every single bloke would run at the sight of her. That is until a curious newspaper reporter found down-and-out blueblood Max. Max, courting a serious gambling problem, accepts $5000 to simply snap pictures of Penelope while pretending to woo her. Of course, things go sour when he actually falls for her, snout and all.
I don't particularly care for Christina Ricci, but in this case she completely won me over. She beautifully balanced a girl who's had to learn harsh life lessons early on (her parents faked her death to keep her out of the public eye!), but who's never set foot out of the house. When Penelope finally leaves home, her wondrous, childlike amazement of the outside world is a sight to behold. Her wit, charm and grace make you easily forget about the Miss Piggy look and love Penelope more than her snobby parents ever did.
The entire supporting cast did a great job too, especially Catherine O'Hara as Penelope's shallow, overbearing mother. And I could go on and on about James McAvoy, but I don't want to bore you. But even with the hobo look, the guy's still dreamy.
This modern day fairytale comes complete with humor, love, subtle imagination and a moral tale for young girls. The entire thing left me giddy and ready to watch it again, but it was a little too late and I had to get to work the next day. If I must complain about something it's that Reese Witherspoon didn't have quite enough screen time as Penelope's funky new friend, Annie. I would've liked to see her character fleshed out just a little bit more. Also the film is very predictable, but few fairytales, even modern ones, aren't these days.
I don't know why it took over two years after production for Penelope to find its way to theaters, but I'm glad it finally did.
Rating:
5 pieces of fan mail:
Rachel, we're on a similar wavelength today - I just put Penelope at the top of my Netflix queue 5 minutes ago and then saw your review and am even more excited to see it. Thanks for the great review.
Wow, that's freaky. I highly recommend this one, as you can tell. It's a shame it didn't get much box office love, but I'm hoping people start discovering it on DVD. I've already seen it mentioned on 2 or 3 other blogs this week since watching it Sunday night.
We saw this in the theater and I think we were both pleasantly surprised. Go into it with "(early) Burton lite" expectations and you're bound to be pleased. The only thing that really bothered me was the villain - so over the top, bad acting.
Loved Dinklage, though, as usual. He rocks.
Thanks for the tip! I have added it to my queue (like I need an excuse to watch James McAvoy!).
Fletch: I agree about the villain being over the top and bad, but I still found myself laughing at him all the same. And Dinklage was great too. Glad to see he's not being typecast due to being vertically challenged.
Mom: You don't need an excuse to watch JM, but you do need a movie, unless you plan to take up stalking.
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