Penguin Bloom
Naomi Watts plays a fun-loving, athletic mother-of-three whose life is altered forever in a split-second. But this heartfelt Australian drama about her affinity with an injured magpie really doesn’t do her character justice….
Bird and the Blooms: Penguin and Griffin Murray-Johnston
The last
time Naomi Watts visited Thailand on screen, in The Impossible (2012), she suffered horrific injuries to her chest
and legs. In Penguin Bloom she falls
off a Thai balcony and breaks her back. Back in Newport, Sydney, the
once-athletic Sam Bloom (Naomi) has to contend with a daily routine of pain and
despondency as she looks on at her three boisterous sons growing up without
her. Sentencing herself to a life in the shadows, Sam descends into a pit of
anger and self-pity. Her long-suffering husband, Kem (short for Cameron),
ladles on the love and compassion, but seems unable to reach her. The one thing
he is forbidden from doing is asking her how she is.
Beware the
film that arrives with such adhesive-ready labels as “heart-warming” and “based
on a true story.” Regardless of a movie’s provenance, it needs to convince on
its own terms, be it set in outer space or at Hogwarts. Penguin Bloom has no difficulty in creating a plausible world, but
its storyline seems somewhat unremarkable in light of recent ‘unbelievable-but-true’
narratives. The real story – of Sam Bloom’s subsequent triumph as a two-time ‘World
Adaptive Surfing Champion’ – is not what Penguin
Bloom is about, which seems a shame. Disney’s Soul Surfer (2011), about the American surfer Bethany Hamilton who
went on to win various titles after losing her arm in a shark attack, was a tale
worth telling. Here, Sam’s battle is more prosaic – the triumph of finding
happiness in the face of utter despair. However, the title role goes to Penguin,
an injured magpie adopted by Sam’s eldest son, Noah (Griffin Murray-Johnston),
our narrator.
The problem
with Penguin Bloom is that it has
neither the gritty realism of, say, Ken Loach’s Kes (1969) – another tale of bird and boy – nor the heart-warming sheen
of Soul Surfer. That is not to say it
hasn’t got its array of assets. Jackie Weaver, as Sam’s mom, provides a nice
line in sardonic forbearance, while Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln are
invariably good value, with the latter, as Cameron Bloom, skilfully
underplaying his Antipodean accent. The latter’s photographs are particularly
striking and are well worth hanging around for during the closing credits. And any
film that opens with the haunting dawn chorus of Australian birdsong is already
on the right foot. There’s also a lovely moment when, Noah, practising his
guitar, makes a rough approximation of Lennon and McCartney’s ‘Magpie’. Nonetheless,
Penguin Bloom suffers from being neither
fish nor fowl.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln, Jacki
Weaver, Griffin Murray-Johnston, Felix Cameron, Abe Clifford-Barr, Rachel House,
Leeanna Walsman, Lisa Hensley, Gia Carides.
Dir Glendyn Ivin, Pro Emma Cooper, Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jodi Matterson
and Naomi Watts, Screenplay Shaun
Grant and Harry Cripps, based on the book of the same name by Cameron Bloom and
Bradley Trevor Greiveby, Ph Sam
Chiplin, Pro Des Annie Beauchamp, Ed Maria Papoutsis, Music Marcelo Zarvos, Costumes
Joanna Mae Park, Sound Chris Goodes, Dialect coach Victoria Mielewska.
Screen Australia/Endeavor Content/Create NSW/Made Up Stories/Jam Tart Films/Broadtalk-Netflix.
96 mins. Australia/USA. 2020. Rel: 27 January 2020. Available on Netflix. Cert. PG.