Penguin Bloom | |
---|---|
![]() Australian theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Glendyn Ivin |
Written by |
|
Based on | Penguin Bloom by
|
Produced by |
|
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Sam Chiplin |
Edited by | Maria Papoutsis |
Music by | Marcelo Zarvos |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by |
|
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes [1] |
Countries |
|
Language | English |
Box office | $6.3 million [2] [3] |
Penguin Bloom is a 2020 Australian drama film directed by Glendyn Ivin, from a screenplay by Shaun Grant and Harry Cripps, and is based on the book of the same name by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive. It stars Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln and Jacki Weaver. The book and film are based on a true story of Sam and Cameron Bloom's family and their interactions with an Australian magpie named 'Penguin'. [4]
It was theatrically released in Australia by Roadshow Films on 21 January 2021 and digitally in the United States by Netflix on 27 January.
During a family vacation in Thailand, Sam Bloom accidentally falls off a high balcony and breaks her T6 thoracic vertebrae resulting in partial paralysis. Back home in Australia, Sam, an avid surfer, struggles to adjust to life in a wheelchair, but is supported by her husband Cameron, their three sons Noah, Rueben, and Oli, and Sam's overbearing mother Jan.
One afternoon, the three boys find and bring home an injured magpie chick who they name Penguin. Sam is initially too despondent to care for Penguin but understands it's important to Noah, and as time goes on, she bonds with her. Noah feels guilty for being the one who asked his mum to go up to the balcony in Thailand and has withdrawn from her since the accident. Sam and Cameron's relationship also deteriorates as she struggles to find joy in daily life and wishes to forget who she was before the fall since she can no longer live in the same way. She demands he never ask her how she is.
After several weeks, Penguin fully recovers and learns to fly, inspiring Sam to want to do something for herself; she starts kayaking lessons. For Sam's birthday, the Blooms go for dinner at Jan's house, joined by Sam's sister Kylie and Sam's kayaking instructor Gaye. While Jan and Cameron argue about Sam's new life and their responsibilities to her, Penguin is attacked by two larger birds and then flies away.
Sam eventually confronts Noah about his guilt and tells him he is not to blame for what happened to her. She apologises for being distant and reveals she has found her strength, and the whole family reconcile. Sam asks Cameron to ask her how she is, and when he does, she replies, "I'm better."
Penguin returns home a few days later, and Sam thanks her for helping her recover.
The rights to the book were acquired in December 2016 by Bruna Papandrea. Naomi Watts was set to star and to co-produce with Mark Audet, Emma Cooper, and Made Up Stories. [5] [6] In June 2017, Shaun Grant was hired to write the screenplay. [7] By February 2019, Glendyn Ivin was set to direct, and in July Andrew Lincoln, Jacki Weaver and Rachel House were added to the cast. [8] [9] [10]
Filming began in Australia in early August 2019. [11] [6] [12]
Penguin Bloom had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 2020. [13]
The film was released theatrically in Australia on 21 January 2021 by Roadshow Films, [14] and hit number one at the Australian box office for its opening weekend. [15]
Netflix released the film in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, France and select Asian countries on 27 January 2021. [16]
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 67% approval rating based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Penguin Bloom's fact-based story could have been adapted with greater nuance, but strong work from Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln adds some much-needed heart." [17] According to Metacritic, which sampled 17 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, the film received "mixed or average reviews". [18]
The script for Penguin Bloom by Shaun Grant and Harry Cripps was shortlisted for the Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting at the 2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. [19]
Award | Ceremony date | Category | Subject | Result | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AACTA Awards | December 8, 2021 | Best Film | Emma Cooper | Nominated | [20] |
Steve Hutensky | Nominated | ||||
Jodi Matterson | Nominated | ||||
Bruna Papandrea | Nominated | ||||
Naomi Watts | Nominated | ||||
Best Direction | Glendyn Ivin | Nominated | |||
Best Adapted Screenplay | Harry Cripps | Nominated | |||
Shaun Grant | Nominated | ||||
Best Actress | Naomi Watts | Nominated | |||
Best Supporting Actress | Jacki Weaver | Nominated | |||
Best Cinematography | Sam Chiplin | Nominated | |||
Best Original Music Score | Marcelo Zarvos | Nominated | |||
Best Production Design | Annie Beauchamp | Nominated | |||
Ione Skye Lee is a British-American actress and the daughter of singer Donovan. She made her film debut in the thriller River's Edge (1986) before gaining mainstream exposure for her starring role in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... (1989). She continued to appear in films throughout the 1990s, with notable roles in Gas Food Lodging (1992), Wayne's World (1992) and One Night Stand (1997).
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. After her family moved to Australia, she made her film debut there in the drama For Love Alone (1986) and then appeared in three television series, Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991), and Home and Away (1991), and the film Flirting (1991). After moving to the United States, Watts initially struggled as an actress, taking roles in small-scale films until she starred in David Lynch's psychological thriller Mulholland Drive in 2001 as an aspiring actress. The role began her rise to international prominence.
Andrew James Clutterbuck, better known by his stage name Andrew Lincoln, is an English actor. His first major role was as the character Egg in the BBC drama This Life (1996–1997). Lincoln later portrayed Simon Casey in the Channel 4 sitcom Teachers (2001–2003), Mark in the Christmas-themed romantic comedy film Love Actually (2003) and Dr. Robert Bridge in the ITV television series Afterlife (2005–2006).
Samuel Henry John Worthington is an Australian actor. One of the highest grossing actors of all time, he is known for playing Jake Sully in the Avatar franchise, Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation, and Perseus in Clash of the Titans and its sequel Wrath of the Titans.
Caddie is an Australian film biopic directed by Donald Crombie and produced by Anthony Buckley. Released on 1 April 1976, it is representative of the Australian film renaissance which occurred during that decade. Set mainly in Sydney during the 1920s and 1930s, including the Great Depression, it portrays the life of a young middle class woman struggling to raise two children after her marriage breaks up. Based on Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid, a partly fictitious autobiography of Catherine Beatrice "Caddie" Edmonds, it made Helen Morse a local star and earned Jacki Weaver and Melissa Jaffer each an Australian Film Institute Award.
Phoebe Jane Elizabeth Tonkin (born July 12, 1989) is an Australian actress. She is known for portraying Cleo Sertori in H2O: Just Add Water, Fiona Maxwell in Tomorrow, When the War Began, Faye Chamberlain in The Secret Circle, and Hayley Marshall in The CW series The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off series The Originals.
Richard Bruce Wherrett AM was an Australian stage director, whose career spanned 40 years. He is known for being the founding director of the Sydney Theatre Company in 1979.
Avatar: The Way of Water is a 2022 American epic science fiction film co-produced and directed by James Cameron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from a story the trio wrote with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. Distributed by 20th Century Studios, it is the sequel to Avatar (2009) and the second installment in the Avatar film series. Cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao and Matt Gerald reprise their roles from the original film, with Sigourney Weaver returning in an additional role, while Kate Winslet joined the cast. It follows a blue-skinned humanoid Na'vi named Jake Sully (Worthington) as he and his family, under renewed human threat, seek refuge with the aquatic Metkayina clan of Pandora, a habitable exomoon on which they live.
Animal Kingdom is a 2010 Australian crime drama film written and directed by David Michôd in his feature directorial debut. It stars Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, James Frecheville, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, and Sullivan Stapleton.
Jacqueline Ruth Weaver is an Australian theatre, film, and television actress. Weaver emerged in the 1970s Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974). She later starred in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Caddie (1976), Squizzy Taylor (1982), and a number of television films, miniseries, and Australian productions of plays such as Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Naomi Watts is a British actress and producer known for her work in Australian and American film, television and video games. Watts emigrated with her family to Australia from the UK at the age of 14, and made her debut in the 1986 Australian film For Love Alone. She then pursued a brief career in the fashion industry, first as a model and later as a fashion editor. After attending a drama workshop, Watts quit her editing job and pursued acting as a career. She appeared in the sitcom Hey Dad..! (1990), and the soap opera Home and Away (1991). Her first lead role was in the 1993 thriller Gross Misconduct, where Watts played a student who seduces her teacher, and then accuses him of rape.
Maya the Bee is a 2014 computer-animated comedy adventure film directed by Alexs Stadermann, loosely based on the 1975 anime Maya the Bee as well as indirectly the German children's book The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Waldemar Bonsels. It features the voices of Coco Jack Gillies, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Noah Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Jacki Weaver, Justine Clarke, The Umbilical Brothers, and Miriam Margolyes.
Gypsy is an American drama streaming television series created by Lisa Rubin for Netflix. Naomi Watts stars as Jean Holloway, a psychologist who secretly infiltrates the private lives of her patients. Billy Crudup co-stars as her husband Michael. The first season comprises 10 episodes and was released on June 30, 2017.
Noah Cameron Schnapp is an American actor. He gained recognition for playing Will Byers in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things. He had a supporting role in Steven Spielberg's historical drama Bridge of Spies (2015) and has voiced Charlie Brown in the animated film The Peanuts Movie (2015).
Carnival Row is an American fantasy television series created by René Echevarria and Travis Beacham, based on Beacham's unproduced film spec script, A Killing on Carnival Row. The series stars Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Simon McBurney, Tamzin Merchant, David Gyasi, Andrew Gower, Karla Crome, Arty Froushan, Indira Varma, and Jared Harris. The series follows mythological beings who must survive as oppressed refugees in human society, as a detective works to solve murders connected with them.
The Grudge is a 2019 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Nicolas Pesce. A reboot of the 2004 American remake and the original 2002 Japanese horror film Ju-On: The Grudge, the film also takes place before and during the events of the 2004 film and its two sequels. It is the fourth installment in the American The Grudge film series and stars Andrea Riseborough, Demián Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye, and Jacki Weaver. The film follows a police officer who investigates several murders that are seemingly connected to a single house.
Bloom is an Australian streaming television series which was released on Stan. A six-part mystery was released on 1 January 2019, and stars Bryan Brown, Jacki Weaver, Phoebe Tonkin, and Ryan Corr. A second season was released on 9 April 2020.
Made Up Stories is a film and television development and production company founded in 2017 by producer Bruna Papandrea that "[champions] women on and off the screen." The company has offices in Los Angeles and Sydney.
The Desperate Hour is a 2021 thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce. It stars Naomi Watts as a woman who is desperately racing to save her child after police place her hometown on lockdown due to an active shooter incident. The film was shot in the North Bay area of Ontario in 2020. It premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. The Desperate Hour was theatrically released by Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment on February 25, 2022.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is an Australian drama miniseries created by Sarah Lambert and based on the eponymous novel by Holly Ringland. All seven episodes were directed by Glendyn Ivin, and were released by Amazon Studios from 4 August to 1 September, 2023.