Õæ°®Ö®ÎÇ Penelope review by Stephanie Zacharek

The most inspired element of Mark Palansky's modern-day fairy tale "Penelope" is the vision of Christina Ricci in a prosthetic pig snout. Her character, the Penelope of the title, is a sort-of princess born into an aristocratic family, a bright and engaging young woman who has everything going for her -- except for the fact that, as the result of a decades-old curse on her clan, she was born with the broad, flat upturned nose of a piglet.

The plot hinges on the way Penelope's mother, Jessica (Catherine O'Hara), has become preoccupied with breaking the curse: For that to happen, Penelope needs to meet someone who will love her genuinely and faithfully, snout and all. So Jessica vigorously devotes her life -- with the zeal she might normally devote to the garden club or local charity events -- to finding the ideal mate for her daughter, foisting one upper-crust suitor after another upon the poor girl, all of whom flee when they see what she looks like.

That's a fine enough idea for a fairy-tale romance. But "Penelope" -- which is Palansky's feature debut, and was produced by Reese Witherspoon, who also appears in a small, amusing role -- is too heavy on applied charm and too flimsy when it comes to plot. The picture has a hapless, meandering quality that's tolerable at first but ultimately becomes maddening, as if it were a cartoon narrative recounted by a distracted 4-year-old. (The script is by Leslie Caveny.) This is an undeniably sweet-tempered picture: Its ultimate message is "Love yourself as you are," and who can argue with that? Plus, it's all about loving others regardless of what they look like, a universally acceptable message if ever there was one.

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