Penelope

Christina Ricci is the little rich girl hidden away in a lavish but lonely castle in this contemporary twist on the cursed princess tale. Penelope is burdened with a porcine snout. As facial abnormalities go, her snout isn't much more than an extremely turned-up nose, and Ricci manages to make even that look kind of cute. But the reactions of her high-society peers and prospective beaus run to the extreme. So she flees her gilded tower and hits the big city. "Penelope" has a lighter sense of whimsy and a more subtle storybook play than the bright, insistent parody of "Enchanted," and director Mark Palansky plays it in more modest key than Tim Burton's imaginative fantasias. Palansky fills his world with snooty blue-bloods out of an Edwardian drawing room comedy, shadowy gambling dens of '40s crime films, and a timeless tabloid culture. There are some flat moments to be sure, and Palansky's direction can be a bit unsteady and awkward, but he doesn't wallow in the eccentricities or the modestly self-empowering moral. This fairy tale feels pleasantly down-to-earth. James McAvoy, Catherine O'Hara, Reese Witherspoon and Peter Dinklage co-star. The DVD includes the featurette "The Making of a Modern-Day Tale."