'Penguin Bloom' review: Naomi Watts shines in otherwise cliched tale

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The Netflix movie "Penguin Bloom" is not about a penguin at all, but rather an injured baby magpie who is named Penguin by the Australian Bloom family after they take her in. She brings some hope and healing to matriarch Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts), who has been partially paralyzed after a fall, and the rest of the clan.

The picture, based on a true story, is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Cameron Bloom, the patriarch of a family that includes three boys, and writer Bradley Trevor Greive.

It co-stars Andrew Lincoln as Cameron; Griffin Murray-Johnston, Felix Cameron and Abe Clifford-Bar as Bloom sons Noah, Reuben and Oli, respectively; and Jacki Weaver as Sam's mother Jan. The film is directed by Glendyn Ivin and streaming now.

MY SAY There's a thin line between feel-good entertainment and hokum. While "Penguin Bloom" never quite slips into the latter, it comes awfully close.

The conceit is obvious and labored — Sam and Penguin are kindred spirits, each helping the other find a way forward after a trauma. The screenplay telegraphs every stage of this journey from a mile away and rarely finds an interesting way to complicate the picture.

There simply could not be a more basic metaphor than a bird healing and learning to fly alongside a once active and adventurous woman left struggling to find a reason to get out of bed and keep pushing on.

The movie co-opts a host of cliches, including Sam's nightmares in which she drowns and bland narration from Noah, as he tries to make sense of why this calamity has struck his mom. It adds a touch of sentimentality that's so perfectly calibrated it seems to have been conjured up in an inspirational movie lab.

It's hard to feel particularly engaged in any of this, as it's without much beyond surface-level insight into a subject that has been explored more effectively countless times before.

There are some harrowing details, though: The filmmakers effectively illustrate the PTSD experienced by Sam and the rest of the family, returning at several moments to the scene of Sam's injury on vacation in Thailand — she leans on some rotten wood on a rooftop barrier and falls backward onto the ground below. There's no escaping this memory, which lands like a punch to the gut.

Similarly, Naomi Watts is too good of an actress to do anything less than fully commit to this part, capturing the extraordinary depths of Sam's anguish and frustration. Not only can't she surf, or run, but when her children are sick at night and need her, she can't get right up and help them.

A movie focused more on this aspect of Sam's experience, less beholden to the trappings of a misty-eyed family animal picture, might have really offered something worthwhile and new.

BOTTOM LINE: "Penguin Bloom" is too obvious and cliched, but it has the benefit of excellent work from Naomi Watts.