TV-14 | 1h 35min | Drama | 2021
Australian couple, Samantha/Sam (Naomi Watts) and Cameron/Cam Bloom (Andrew Lincoln), are vacationing in Thailand with their chirpy sons, 11-year-old Reuben (Felix Cameron), 9-year-old Noah (Griffin Murray-Johnston), and 7-year-old Oli (Abe Clifford-Barr). Sam accidentally leans on a defective upper-balcony railing. It shatters and she falls 20 feet, fracturing her skull and cracking her spine.
Now confined to a wheelchair, a shadow of her sporty, self-reliant self, the once sunny Sam spirals into self-pity. That their brightly lit house sits next to a gorgeous beach is only a painful reminder that her days as an active surfer appear well and truly past. Filled with self-loathing, she shutters herself emotionally, often physically, from Cam and the boys, while they struggle to cheer her (and themselves) up.
Life-Giving Empathy
Mr. Ivin depicts how gratifyingly contagious empathy is, even in the case of an acquired disability.
In turns clumsy and cute, Penguin regains strength, and laughter makes a comeback at home. Noah’s empathy for Penguin transforms the whole family. But Noah bears a hidden guilt. It was he who led Sam near the fated balcony; he feels responsible for crippling her.
In interviews co-producer and lead actress Ms. Watts confessed that she found it hard to tell the “bottom half” of her body to not move. She shaped her character by reading Ms. Bloom’s journaled, often suicidal, thoughts, and by filming the movie at the Bloom house.
She struggled working with magpies because she’d once been attacked by a flock of the birds. They’re smart and trainable, but they can be scrappy. As many as 10 magpies depicted the single bird that befriended the Blooms. Director Glendyn Ivin and cast either got shots they wanted right away or had tortured waits for a magical camera moment.
Changes in the Family
Mr. Ivin brings to life not just the family’s togetherness but also their conflicts. Cam imagines that the recovering Sam hasn’t changed, and the boys think that she’s the same mother they knew. Both are wishful thinking. Her anguished outbursts show that paralysis changes people permanently. Her family is in pain even as they learn to love the new Sam, and she learns to love herself anew. Noah admits that even if she isn’t who she “was” or “wanted to be,” she’s “much more than that" to him.It’s a heartwarming film. But something’s off in the second half. Supportive families like this one, feel injury to one individual as a collective wound. No one’s indifferent. Everyone’s affected, as Cam tells Sam. So, watching Cam and the boys repeatedly empathize, despite not fathoming her emotions, there’s a nagging sense that, at least on screen if not in the book, the recovering Sam doesn’t seem as grateful for their love or as remorseful for rebuffing it as she should be.
But her children, too, had their world flipped; suddenly their mom wasn’t around when, where, and how they needed her. With Cam’s superhuman effort, they coped, and helped her cope, too.
Together, weren’t they “guardian” angels enough? Weren’t they “vulnerable” also? Why did an animal appear more “healing?” The movie doesn’t answer these questions adequately.
In one article Ms. Bloom tries to: “Compassion, friendship and support can come from the most unexpected places.” That doesn’t explain or excuse the onscreen Sam, but it’ll have to do. Briefly, Penguin was a winged bridge, reconnecting Sam and the other Blooms with each other, mending their brokenness when they didn’t know how to do it themselves.
