Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Penelope




Starring: Christina Ricci, James McAvoy and Reese Witherspoon. This is a story somewhere in the middle of fantasy and reality. A curse put upon a girl born from a certain family that will have the face of the pig. And the curse will only be broken unless "one of their kind" learns to love her. She is raised to think that her physical appearance is not entirely hers but of someone else.
The family then assumes that this is somewhat a romantic kind of love to which is why they persist on finding the "right one" for her, which usually ends up ugly since all her suitors run for their lives from the very sight of her.
The snout can't be cut off since her heart was attached to it.
Then comes in this guy mistaken for someone else, but still pretends to like Penelope just so he can get the money to be payed to him if he gets a picture of the pig-faced girl. I'll try not to talk about the entire movie, but as the usual romantic-comedy plot goes, they end up happily together.

After days of begging this friend of mine from work to lend me his copy of the movie, I was finally able to watch it. Not because of the trailers which I haven't seen yet, but because it features my favorite actors; Christina Ricci and Reese Witherspoon. I've followed Christina's movies way back since the Addams Family days. I even saw her latest film, Speed Racer (which I'll be reviewing sometime later) as well. Her performance is every bit of elegance. I've always admired how she delivers her roles. On this movie though, she portrays this inquisitive and intellectual girl stuck with a snout for a nose, which appears to quite whimsical. I was also expecting Reese Witherspoon to have a bigger role here, sad to say she didn't have that much part here although she was fun to watch. The guy, James McAvoy, even made things look sweeter. His reaction to her seeing him at the last part was heart-pounding. Yeah, I'm not the touchy-feely kind of person but hey, I was moved. And to this I say, I'm impressed. And it's noticeable as well that the point of learning to love oneself is overshadowed by the romantic plot of the film. But still, both the young and the old can enjoy this.


I'm giving it 3 and half stars (out of 5)

4 comments:

Ozzy's Mom said...

interesting avy :) i wanna watch this!

Erika Amor said...

is this a new movie or something? haha, hindi kasi ako updated eh. btw, i linked you up. :]

Adobobo said...

Watch out, Keanu Reeves moment ahead.

James McAvoy+Reese Witherspoon+Christina Ricci?

Whoah.

Showing ba ni? I have/need/absopositively ought to watch this!

Aux Zero said...

@ Adobobo:
dili pa sya showing. and i doubt na ipalabas pud na diri. bought a copy of it lang. :)