It's
sort of cute to watch American cinema flailing around with the princess
paradigm, as fairy-tale films like Enchanted, The Princess Diaries, Shrek, Ella Enchanted, and Ever After try to find safe ground between
romantic fantasies and modern feminist ideals. How to balance girl-power
self-actualization with the beloved little-girl daydream of being the prettiest
princess in the land, wooed by the handsomest prince? Penelope, the latest film to essay these
treacherous waters, gets by mostly on winsome charm; where the balance doesn't
really work, it tries to tip the scales with a shrug and a smile.
Once
upon a time (naturally), an irritated witch cursed an aristocratic London
family to produce a daughter with the face of a pig. By coincidence, though,
the family birthed only sons, until modern-day scion Penelope (Christina Ricci)
was born to high-strung scenery-gobbler Catherine O'Hara and dimly oblivious
dad Richard E. Grant. The terms of the curse state that Ricci will remain
snouted until she's accepted for life by "one of her own kind." So O'Hara and
Grant hide her behind a one-way mirror and start trying to hook her up with
other British bluebloods, who mostly leap out of windows in terror when she
finally shows her face. The exception is impoverished chronic gambler James
McAvoy, who halfheartedly romances Ricci while trying to get a picture of her
for bitter paparazzo Peter Dinklage. But naturally, he and Ricci make a
personal connection, and blah blah blah romance, etc.
To
the film's credit, the key to Ricci's dilemma isn't wholly dependent on her
snagging a man. That too often leaves McAvoy hovering purposelessly in the
background, among several other loose plotlines, but it lets the film step off
the rom-com rails and ditch the Disney-princess tropes, as Ricci veers off on
her own mildly innovative storyline. None of which keeps Penelope from being sloppy, unfocused, and
occasionally shrill, particularly when the usually reliable O'Hara mugs her way
through desperate theme-establishing lines like "You are not your nose! You are
not you! You're
somebody else!"
First-time director Mark Palansky is trying for a deft, hip, modern fairy-tale
feel, but the odd material, sprawling story, and complicated tonal balancing
act get away from him, and the film winds up as a poorly paced tug-of-war
between sweet quirk and sloppy camp. But there are worse messages, and worse
ways of bringing them across. At least the film's hesitant heart is in the
right place.