“Penelope” may be about a girl born with pig’s snout. But the heartening family-friendly fantasy is anything but, um, a boar. As directed with an offbeat touch by Mark Palansky and written with a mix of subtle comedy and sweet pathos by Leslie Caveny, it’s the fable of the ugly duckling made relevant for the modern age.
Expectations were low for the British-flavored project headlining Christina Ricci and produced by Reese Witherspoon, who also takes a very small supporting role. The completed picture has languished “on the shelf” — as they say in Hollywood — for months without a firm release date. But, no doubt, the presence of “Atonement’s” newly hot “it” boy James McAvoy, as Ricci’s love interest here, helped get the surprising charmer out now.
