Brag#3 : Penelope

Penelope, a movie my 0.5 (bff @ Aida) mentioned to me about a movie starring Christina Ricci, Catherine O'Harra, James McAvoy & Reese Witherspoon.
What caught our eye was the combination of CR + RW in one movie, we're both big fans of these actress, they do real good.

The movie is oh-so cutely romantically funny in its own fairytale-like of style has simply won over my heart. It's like a children story for everybody, even adults would be able to relate to it. It's THAT good!

Well since I'm a huge fan of Tim Burton, but this movie is as good as TimB's ingenious creativity. The director of this movie is by Mark Palansky & produced by Reese Witherspoon herself [that's hawt].

Plot

Generations ago, a witch placed a curse on the Wilhern family that would result in the next girl being born into the clan having the face of a pig. For generations, only sons were born into the family, until approximately twenty-five years ago, when Penelope (Christina Ricci) was born, stricken with the curse. It is said that the curse can only be lifted if one of her own learns to love her, which is interpreted by her parents to mean a blueblood. When a tabloid reporter named Lemon (Peter Dinklage) begins stalking the family to get a photograph of the infant Penelope, her parents, Jessica (Catherine O'Hara) and Franklin (Richard E. Grant), cloister their daughter away in their mansion, where Penelope spends her life immersing herself in intellectual pursuits such as literature, horticulture and music. Now an adult, Penelope's parents attempt to introduce her to possible rich suitors, hoping that one of them will fall in love with her and break the curse. Unfortunately, every man who lays eyes on the girl takes flight at first sight, never to return, including Edward Humphrey Vanderman III, a spoiled, cruel-hearted snob who finds her repulsive.

Vanderman teams up with Lemon and the team goes out to find someone who can get into the house for a picture. They mistakenly take Johnny (James McAvoy), an unrepentant gambler with a heavy heart, for Max (Nick Frost), who agrees to help Lemon and Vanderman snatch a photograph of her for money. When "Max" meets Penelope, however, he is unexpectedly caught off guard by her disarming charm, and decides to renege on his agreement with Lemon and Vanderman, realizing that their attempt to exploit Penelope is repugnant, but Penelope interprets "Max's" ambivalence to mean that he too finds her monstrous. She decides to flee the protection of her parents' home, and journeys out into the city, naive and ignorant of the world from which she has been sequestered her entire life. Having no money, and seeing that Lemon and Vanderman are publicly offering a reward to anyone who can produce a photograph of her, she decides to collect on the reward by producing a photo of herself, essentially coming out of hiding to the public.

Vanderman's father, seeing the public's fondness for Penelope and embarrassed by his son's vocal cruelty toward her, coerces Edward into proposing to her. Penelope nearly marries him, but backs out of the wedding at the last minute. When her mother urges her to marry him, lest she be forced spend the rest of her life with her current appearance, Penelope exasperatedly tells her mother that she likes herself the way she is. At that moment, she is enveloped by magical energy, and when it dissipates, her pig snout and ears are gone.

Penelope moves on with her life, becoming a horticulturist and teacher, the spectacle of her former appearance forgotten by the public. At a costume party at which she wears a porcine mask, she meets Max, who, unaware of her transformation, apologizes for not being able to break her curse, although it is obvious he is still in love with her. Removing her mask, she reciprocates his feelings, and the two begin a romance.

The film ends with Johnny pushing Penelope on a swing after teaching a horticulturial class. Lemon, the reporter is about to take a picture on a nearby paddle boat and decides to call it even for once.