Penelope

Mark Palansky’s film began shooting in January 2006 in London and at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, showed at Toronto that September, and reached American cinemas only on 29 February 2008. The United States rights changed hands in between; it stopped at Cannes in May 2007 and opened in Russia and Ukraine that August. It opened ninth in the United States with 3.8 million dollars, finishing at 21.2 million worldwide. The terms of the curse are not marriage. The witch says the Wilhern daughter will be born with a pig’s face and turned human by the love of one of her own kind. The family’s hunt for a blue blood husband is a narrow reading of that line, and the curse lifts not at a wedding but when Penelope says she likes herself as she is, breaking the bargain the premise sells. Reese Witherspoon produced it, her first credit in that job, and took the small part of Annie. Michael Feast plays both Jake the butler and the witch’s true form; James McAvoy’s character is a gambler under another man’s name. A good fit if you want a fairy tale that withholds transformation until the heroine stops bargaining for it. Not for anyone uneasy with a story built on a face; the premise rests there even as the film argues against it.