Penguin Bloom was a film so generic that I'm honestly more impressed than disappointed. While the film is based on a true story, the resulting product ends up being incredibly sappy and boring, with the some most predictable, by the numbers setups I've seen in years. The story follows Naomi Watts as Sam Bloom, who becomes permanently wheelchair bound after falling off a cliff during a family vacation. Sometime later in the story, her kids find an injured magpie, who they name "Penguin", (hence the title) who they decide to nurse back to health. Sam does not like this magpie, but grows closer with it throughout the movie. This is basically the extent of the film. The magpie wins the arbitrary prize for being the best actor in the film and is probably the most enjoyable aspect of it. Naomi Watts is a great actress, but does not deliver anything exceptional in this movie, the child performances are nothing of note, and Andrew Lincoln delivers a performance so excessive and overacted that his character ends up being totally unlikeable. In summary, the story was cheesy, the music was cheesy, the acting was cheesy, and the dialogue was cheesy, The rest of the movie is represented by the most boring and bland two slices of bread you have ever seen, and the magpie is a sprig of parsley to garnish the cheese sandwich that is Penguin Bloom. Penguin Bloom is indeed a movie.
Review of Penguin Bloom
