Penelope Wilhern is the victim of a hundred year old curse placed on her aristocratic family, the Wilherns. She was cursed with the face of a pig at birth (meaning pig nose and ears). The only way the curse can be broken is if she finds "someone of her own kind" who will love her the way she is. Too bad that now she's come of age and every young man who sees her for the first time flings himself out the window in order to get away from her faster. Will the curse ever be broken? Will she ever find someone to accept her?
This one is on my top ten favorite movies. Christina Ricci is beautiful but as an actress she's not that much to shout about. James McAvoy makes up for her with flying colors along with Catherine O'Hara and a little sprinkling of Reese Witherspoon. The costumes are to die for (I only wish I could find some of her skirts and dresses in real stores with real price tags) and the whole feel of the movie has kind of this old fashioned, chic...something or other. I know, I feel very educated right now but I simply can't find the word for it anywhere! Anyway, I love that this story is one that can really teach us the whole point of loving ourselves the way we are. Penelope's mother (Catherine O'Hara) is the perfect example of how most of us are without even realizing we are. She's not a bad person she just has some messed up ways of viewing things that the real world actually supports. It's a great movie to watch with your kids of appropriate ages and have a little discussion afterwards about why we should and should not get married and why we need to love ourselves the way we are.
Motherly Advice: This little film is rated PG for some language and innuendo. Why on earth do they put innuendo in PG movies I will never understand. So with your filters set to medium for disturbing images you'll miss one short clip of a surprisingly scary pig creature with fangs. We still see drawings of this creature but it isn't so bad that way. With filters set to medium or more for language you'll be spared a few curse words and some innuendos. The thing you'll want to be aware of here is that James McAvoy's character does a lot of gambling where people smoke and drink. Penelope also gets drunk at a bar while drinking the beer on tap. She's not ridiculously drunk and simply acts a little loopy. Penelope tells the young man she's just asked to marry that she will kill herself if the curse isn't broken and at the beginning we see a young woman 'fall' off a cliff. Also at the very beginning the story is told of how one of Penelope's late grandfather's 'had a fling' with a servant girl and she got pregnant. Then we hear how later on in this same genealogy a Wilhern wife gives birth to a daughter who is not in fact a Wilhern, 'She had actually given birth to a Jones' and then the young man at the other side of the room winks at her.
And lastly, at the very end there is a rather passionate kiss between our hero and heroine. It's a little bit juicy for youngsters in my opinion, but if you put your sex filters to Most it gives you the very first part of the kiss and then cuts to them talking again. It's a really good filter.
So, depending on your kids and how intently they pay attention to details like you'll find at the very beginning, I'm going to put my stamp of approval on this for ages 8 and up with some discussion here and there on certain topics.
Danielle'- Red Blood
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