Penguin Bloom

While Glendyn Ivin's based-on-a-true-story 'Penguin Bloom' often falls into run-of-a-mill territory of those family dramas about overcoming physical and mental struggles, the film succeeds in engaging the emotions, both in times of overbearingness and those of joy and ambition. Naomi Watts delivers a strong, impactful performance with the rest of the cast is made up of strong performers but have little things to do. In addition to the performances, the cinematography and background score are great and ties the movie together.

Beautifully told and acted. Needed my tissues for this one.

I feel the critics are far off the bat with this one. Perhaps they have not been invested in this magical experience like those of us who have grown watching this story.

I've been following Penguin Bloom on Instagram for years now, since Penguin was still with the Bloom family.

This film captures this family's story well. Ignore the critics and those without the context.

A beautiful film.

This movie is very much a "Sunday Movie". One that you and the whole family would sit down to watch all cozied up.

It is lovely and quite emotional.

I think it's PG rating does show ever so slightly with some of the humour being a little bit childish. I mean it tends to come from the kids so maybe it was a choice.

The acting was good but nothing to write home about. I really enjoyed the young lead. I thought he was great and made the character believable and likeable.

I think you could watch it. It was pretty good

In the drama genre Penguin Bloom is a good movie. So if that's the genre you like the most you can't really go wrong with this movie. It's not my favorite genre but nevertheless I liked it as well. It's a gripping story, based on true events (pictures from the real Blooms in the end credits), played perfectly well by Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln (finally in something better than The Walking Dead), and their kids in this movie. But the star of the show (or should I say stars as there were ten different ones) is definitely the magpie. That's what makes this movie enjoyable to watch, at least for me as an animal lover. The story can be a bit cheesy at times but the magpie made that all seem futile. The fact that it's based on a true story makes it a bit special, like always with these kind of stories.