Penelope (2006) - Mark Palansky
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Penelope (2006) - Mark Palansky
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472160/Penelope is a picture-perfect romantic fable featuring a wonderful cast, a great sense of humour and a generous heart.
Fables have a habit of starting with a curse from the past, and Penelope is no exception. Centuries ago, a witch proclaimed that the next girl born to the aristocratic Wilhern family will have the nose of a pig. Generations pass, until Jessica (Catherine O'Hara) and Franklin (Richard E. Grant) lose the sorcery lottery. Their otherwise lovely daughter, Penelope (Christina Ricci), has a porcine snout. After the London gutter press, led by ferocious cub reporter Lemon (Peter Dinklage), gets a misleadingly scary photo of the sweet thing, her parents lock her away in a beautiful mansion.
The curse can be lifted, it is said, if Penelope marries a man of her own class but, despite their enormous wealth, her parents cannot find a suitor. Bewildered gentlemen end up flinging themselves through windows the second they see her - until Max (James McAvoy) comes along. He is a blue-blood addicted to gambling, with a sad heart and a devil-may-care attitude. Though he has a dastardly ulterior motive for meeting Penelope, the two become unlikely friends.
Em Toronto, onde o filme acabou de estrear:
Penelope trades charmingly on familiar storytelling traditions, but it is also briskly modern in unexpected ways. The film is as much about celebrity culture and media manipulation as it is a princess story. Its second half also features a marvellous detour into a girl buddy movie when Penelope, now out in the world, meets tough-as-nails delivery girl Annie, played with hilarious aplomb by Reese Witherspoon. Last year's Academy Award® winner for best actress is a producer of Penelope, and much of the film's charm reflects her charmingly old-fashioned, playful persona.
While the rest of the cast is also superb, it is Ricci who leaves the longest-lasting impression: playing the shy, unsure and hesitant Penelope challenges her to go against her swaggering image. The result is glorious, revealing an inspirational heroine who, one hopes, can in turn inspire a new canon of life- and love-affirming stories. -- © Toronto International Film Festival