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Penelope | 2006 | PG | - 1.3.2

A wealthy family incurs the wrath of a witch, who places a curse on them: their next female child will be born with the face of a pig and will remain so until someone of her own kind loves her. When Penelope (Christina Ricci) is born she indeed has a pig nose and ears, and when she's a young woman her mother (Catherine O'Hara) searches for a wealthy boy for her daughter to marry in order to break the curse. But the search proves fruitless since none of the young men can tolerate Penelope's appearance. Also with Paul Herbert Reese Witherspoon, James McAvoy, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, Nick Frost, Lenny Henry, Simon Woods, Ronnie Ancona, Michael Feast. Directed by Mark Palansky. [1:41]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A young man and a young woman kiss a couple of times. A young man puts his arm around a young woman.
 We hear that a wealthy young man had an affair with a servant and she became pregnant. A man says about a young woman who's with a young man, "She's finding his instrument" and a woman says, "Isn't that something he should be able to do on his own?" (the young man is playing many musical instruments). A young woman talks about a flower "just popping up" and another young woman says, "Just like my old boyfriend."
 Women wear low-cut tops and dresses that reveal cleavage in several scenes.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - We see a young pregnant woman standing on a cliff, she throws herself off the cliff, we hear a thud, and a voice tells us that she killed herself because the man she loved married someone else.
 A young man is startled when he imagines a snarling woman with a pig nose and sharp teeth standing outside a car and trying to get at him.
 A woman beats a man in the face with a spatula and we see him later with a patch over his eye.
 We see an artist's rendering in a newspaper of a woman with a pig snout, sharp teeth with saliva dripping from them and a scowl.
 We see a funeral and we are told that a woman was forced to pretend that her child was dead, and we see a small casket being cremated. We see a haggard old woman with gray tinged skin and warts and straggly hair placing a curse on a family (thunder rumbles and lighting flashes in the background).
 We see several young men jumping through an upper story window to get away from a young woman. A young man runs toward an upper story window and slams hard into the glass but it does not break. A young woman steps into a room and a young man who sees her runs from the house screaming. A young man is startled by a young woman, he stares at her, he reaches out to touch her face, a camera in his jacket clicks, he is startled, recoils and she runs from the room. A car door closes on a man's face (he's OK).
 A young man insults a young woman repeatedly, another young man puts his hand over the young man's mouth to make him stop and the young man licks his hand to make him take it away. A young man yells at and threatens another man with, "I'll rip your guts out one gut at a time." Two young men argue over a young woman. A mother and daughter argue in several scenes and they struggle over a purse in one scene. A husband becomes angry and yells at his wife. A man yells at his son about his inappropriate comments to the press.
 After meeting a young woman with a pig snout, a young man calls her a monster with fangs and says, "She would have eaten me alive." A young man says, "that thing should be put in a cage," about a young woman with a pig nose. A young woman says that she will kill herself if a curse is not broken. A young man and a young woman play chess and talk about "killing the queen" and that the "king would die from depression." A doctor says that the carotid artery goes right through a young woman's nose and therefore cannot be operated on without killing her. Someone says, "I'm going to throw up." A young man says, "I gag at the thought of kissing her." A young man describes a young woman as being "vomit ugly" and "puke ugly." A young man confesses to a young woman that he was going to steal a book from her library.
 A young woman walking on a path in a park is frightened when two joggers approach her, and she begins to run and scream until they pass. A bright light flashes and a young woman is knocked through the air and lies unconscious on the floor (she is OK). A woman loses her voice and she is unable to speak. A woman faints twice.
 A young woman throws a dart wildly, we hear glass break but no one is injured. We see a doctor holding a newborn with pig ears.

LANGUAGE 2 - 3 scatological terms (2 mild), 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (blue bloods, monster, crazy, hideous, ugly, grotesque, witch, freak), 1 religious exclamation.

SUBSTANCE USE - People drink alcohol in a pub and one young woman has several empty beer mugs lined up in front of her on the bar (she admits to being drunk), people are shown drinking and smoking cigarettes in several scenes, and a young man and a young woman talk about drinking beer and the difference in flavor when it is on tap. A man smokes a cigarette.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Wealth, society, curses, love, marriage for money, guilt, marriage for love, freedom, gambling, rejection, repulsion, physical abnormalities, addictions, following your dreams, missing persons, letting go, independence, matchmaking, cremation, spying, protecting children, horticulture, loneliness, libel, press sensationalism.

MESSAGE - We are not what we look like but what we are inside. It's not the power of the curse but the power you give the curse.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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