The new movie Penguin Bloom is now streaming on Netflix and anyone looking for a movie about penguins might be disappointed, but the film is definitely worth a watch.
The film tells the inspiring true story of Sam Bloom, played by Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts, who was paralyzed from the chest down following a fall while on vacation in Thailand.
In 2013, Bloom, her husband Cameron (The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln) and their three sons left their home in Australia for a holiday in Thailand. While enjoying a view, Sam fell off of a rooftop due to what was later determined to be a rotted railing… breaking her vertebrae in two places. Paralyzed from the chest down, Sam — a lifelong outdoorswoman, surfer, and traveler — was unrecognizable to herself, and spent long months in a depression that made her question who she could be in the world and in her own family.
A year later, her children brought home a wounded baby magpie they found. Warily eyeing the black-and-white bird the kids affectionately named “Penguin,” Sam bonded with the household’s new member, beginning a process of emotional healing that surprised her husband and sons, her mother (Jacki Weaver), and herself.
The inspiring movie premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival and it was released theatrically in Australia on January 21. Audiences in the U.S. can now stream the movie from the comfort of their home thanks to Netflix.
The film currently is fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 63% rating.
