Penelope

In the movie Penelope, Christina Ricci plays a cursed rich girl who desperately finds her ‘true love’ to break her curse. The curse was brought down to many generations; that every girl born into the family will be born with the face of a pig. But heng heng, the 5 generations before Penelope gave birth to boys. There was a girl born to the family b4 P but it’s from a love affair with the family chauffer.

Penelope’s mom is very upset that her child is born with a pig’s face and she tries very hard to avoid Penelope from going out to public. She even faked her daughter’s death so that her ugly face won’t be exposed. So, Penelope has never seen ‘the world’ beyond her house. So when she turned 18, her mom arranged matchmaking for her, hoping she will find her ‘true love (also born to rich family)’ that can help her break the curse and then the family can lead a normal life again. After 7 yrs of hard work, Penelope still couldn’t find the one guy that can help her break the curse but instead, she faces many rejections and guys throwing themselves out of the windows after she comes out from the room to show them her ‘pig face’. Penelope’s mom was so engrossed in breaking the curse, she couldn’t be bothered how her daughter and husband feel, and she just wants the curse to be broken. So the rara went on.

Towards the end, P’s curse broke. Not because she found her true love but she found that she loves herself just the way she is. Then, she went on to look for the guy who love her but was not able to break her curse (he was born to cobbler), they lived happily ever after...

My thoughts: This is typical fairy tale but with a twist, a different way to break the curse. I watched this movie twice as I really like it. But I am disturbed by the fact that the guys throw themselves out of the windows when they saw P’s face. This is very 'kua zhang' la... btw, kua zhang means exaggerating. And the movie makers seem to forget the fact that there are people out there with the syndrome - ‘monkey see monkey do’. I won’t be surprise that even kids learn to do that when they see someone with looks beyond normal.)

James MacAvoy plays Johnny, the guy who lives happily after with P. His charm and his 'sa si ren' eyes (attractive eyes) draws your attention away from his not so good acting. Well, I liked the part where he sang ‘You are my sunshine’ to P. Though it was'nt sung well, but you can see his cheerfulness and being attracted by his ‘cheekiness'.
The bottom line of the movie is to – love yourself just the way you are. I give it 5.5 out of 10