Penelope

It’s a fairy tale, it’s allegorical, I understand that. But still … As a result of an ancient curse, a girl is born with a pig’s nose. To break the curse she has to be accepted uncritically by a “blueblood.” Okay. But she’s been cloistered by her insanely over-protective mother, and every guy who sees her literally runs away in horror, leaping from windows. Okay, they’re spoiled rich kids, but still … Things look up when Peter Dinklage (a dwarf, in case you didn’t know, who has been taking a lot of parts that have little or nothing to do with his stature, something I’m highly in favor of), as an obnoxious and obsessed paparazzo, abandons his quest to get a picture of her. Maybe because he’s a “freak,” too, and feels sympathy?

It all sounds interesting, in theory, and it just plain doesn’t work. Why? Well, for one thing, her nose ain’t all that ugly. Sorry, make-up department, it just ain’t. I’d have no trouble at all dealing with it (and it wouldn’t hurt at all that’s she’s very, very rich). Okay, fairy tale, sure, but the nose should have been … big, you know? And aside from a little ridge along the top, it’s no wider than the nose on the black detective who scowls in horror when he sees her. She should have had huge pig ears, but aside from an early shot as an infant, the ears are pretty much forgotten. Maybe warts would have been too much, but there’s no getting around it, Christina Ricci is pretty, damn it, even with the snout.

She leaves home and becomes a celebrity, an oddity, the tabloid darling of the moment. Still the stupid blueblood her mom has chosen for her to marry says he wants to vomit when he looks at her. Doesn’t make any sense to me. This is why she should have been much uglier, like Nanny McPhee. Naturally, the curse is broken and true love triumphs. And I know this is aimed at teenage girls with acne and braces who desperately want to be Julia Roberts, but I just hated it. We’d already seen how decent people already accepted her as herself. She should have kept the little upturned snout. After all, no curse is going to be removed from the dwarf, his legs and arms aren’t going to grow. He has to accept it. He has to deal with it, as we all deal with our imperfections, (except Julia Roberts). Wouldn’t that have been a better message?