Penelope Review

Penelope has finally found its opening weekend and my review is as simple as this: Go SEE it in the theatre because it is a rare, wonderful, sharply comedic and quick-moving film. Support a movie in a theatre that uses great set designs which includes art by Joe Sorren and includes music by Sigur Rós. Chase scenes are not predictable. Penelope covers, in a few comical moments, what else would a person do who was confined to one house their entire life? I enjoyed the "who's real" and "who's fake" process of elimination and how one copes when you only find the latter. The characters are well-crafted and played by some of my favorite people, obviously Christina Ricci, but also minor characters played by Burn Gorman (Torchwood), Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead's Nick Frost, and the ever-watchable (getting all the laughs when I saw the movie) Peter Dinklage which you've seen in The Station Agent and Death at a Funeral, plus Marianne Faithfull is in it and she really is as great looking as I remember her from the brief appearance she made in BBC's "Absolutely Fabulous". The story's moral is powerful: embrace individuality. It's as simple as that and I would love a poster of this phrase on every street corner to remind those people that forget to do it.