Guest Blogger: Anneka F2

Penelope
This movie is a great example of a modern twist on a fairy tale. Penelope is born into a family with a curse caused by her great-great-grandfather. As result of this curse, she has the nose and ears of a pig. The movie shows the steps she must take to get rid of her inhuman like features and become “just like everyone else.” Christina Ricci plays Penelope, Catherine O’Hara plays the mom, Richard E. Grant plays the dad, and James McAvoy plays the heroic young man (Max) that falls in love with Penelope. I think each actor did a great job; I wanted to snap at O’Hara because she was that good at playing the annoying mother, and McAvoy acted just how a young man who accidently fell in love should.
The motivation for the first 3 characters (Penelope, Mom, Dad,) was obvious; to give Penelope the best life possible and to, of course, get rid of that unsightly pig nose. At first Max’s motivation is money, then solving the mystery, and lastly it is love. Each motivation comes along with its own theme. The top 3 being love, happiness, and freedom. Freedom is central in the movie because without it you can’t have the first 2 themes. Some people gain happiness from freedom and out of happiness braches love, whether it is romantic love, family love or friendly love. Owen Gleiberman reviewed Penelope and unfortunately gave it an F. I, of course, strongly disagree with his assessment. He said “Sadly, the actress is so charmless in Penelope that we can't look at her and see inner beauty.” That is not true though. She was sweet, funny, and I thought very charming. The other critic I looked at was Stephen Holden; he also said the movie was “a hopeless jumble of visual and linguistic styles.” This is also untrue, everything flowed nicely. The critics are wrong; this movie is definitely worth the watch. The movie is uplifting, sweet, and a nice twist on an old fairy-tale.