Perhaps it's due to our longstanding relationship with them as a food source, beasts of burden, herder or pest control agent, but it's certainly interesting that the names of various animals can be used as adjectives to describe people. While some can be used with either gender ("Don't be a chicken," "Stop being a jackass"), it does seem that some of the stronger negative ones are used far more often with women than men in terms of weight ("What a cow," "She's a whale") and/or appearance ("Look at that dog," "What a pig").
Of course, while hurtful, most fall under the old adage about sticks and stones vs. words. But what if one such term and other related familiar sayings hit too close to home, say, for a young woman born with a various obvious suidaen olfactory organ? In other words, a pig's snout.
Such is the literal and figurative curse afflicting one Penelope Wilhern, the young protagonist in the modern day, live-action fairy tale known simply as "Penelope." You see, long ago, one of her aristocratic ancestors impregnated a servant girl who then leapt to her death, thus bringing about the wrath of her mother, who just so happened to be a witch. Wanting to taint the family forever, her curse was for the first-born girl in the bloodline to possess such a porker protuberance, with the only remedy being finding one of her own kind to love her as she is.
Unfortunately for Penelope (a game Christina Ricci made-up with a quite noticeable pig's snout), the XY chromosomes dominated for generations until she came along. Upset more for her reputation than that of her daughter, the girl's mom (Catherine O'Hara) has been trying to get any blueblood to marry her and thus break the curse. Alas, once any of them catch sight of her, they flee running for the hills (or, more accurately, the closest second story or higher window from which they can jump to escape as if she's some sort of swine leper).
In true fairy tale form, along comes the handsome man (James McAvoy) who seems the most likely to give her the old "Wakey, Wakey, Sleeping Beauty" treatment. That is, except for the fact that he's no prince, and instead is chronic gambler who agrees to see her only to get a paparazzi payment from a photographer (Peter Dinklage) who's spent his career trying to get a snapshot of her.
As directed by Mark Palansky from a script by Leslie Caveny, the film plays out pretty much as you'd expect it to in this genre, which will be a selling point for some (thanks to the familiar story), and a detriment and/or deterrent for others (even if they're not looking for a reference to the pig-faced character episode from TV's "Seinfeld"). While I have no problem with this sort of tale (although it obviously wouldn't be my first choice when it comes to picking a movie), I do have issues with illogical and/or unanswered material and questions, as well as problems with finding and maintaining a consistent tone.
Buying into the curse and resultant physical appearance isn't an issue, but trying to figure out why the protagonist's young, would-be suitors flee in terror -- as if they were nail salon employees seeing Freddy Krueger walk through the door -- clearly is. Their subsequent flinging of themselves through glass and wood frame is supposed to show how shallow, uncaring and/or insensitive they are (after all, the rest of her is one-hundred percent Ricci certified), especially in comparison to her pending hero.
Yet, the filmmakers can't decide if said material is supposed to be black comedy, slapstick, absurdist or even something else, thus resulting in the pic sporting an uneven and constantly shifting tone. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's certainly one that prevents the flick from gelling into a cohesive whole that can then transport the viewer away into this little fairy tale universe.
The film gets so goofy at moments that you nearly expect the title character to spout a variation of John Hurt's famous "I'm not an animal...I'm a human being" speech from "The Elephant Man." It clearly most resembles the old Cyrano de Bergerac tale (best known in remade form as "Roxanne") as mated with most any fairy tale (and thus will also likely remind viewers of Princess Fiona from the "Shrek" pics).
Not as funny as the latter (at least referring to the first two installments), nowhere as charming as that Steve Martin flick (still the best fireman with a big nose movie ever made), and certainly not as moving as the former (although that's the biggest stretch as such an intent isn't really present), "Penelope" certainly isn't a travesty. Yet, its very familiarity and various storytelling issues prevent this film from living happily ever, and I'm not horsing around by saying that, or I'm a monkey's uncle. It rates as a 4.5 out of 10.
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