Even Naomi Watts can’t fly above the inspirational pap of Netflix’s Penguin Bloom - The A.V. Club

No penguins appear in Netflix’s new weepie Penguin Bloom, and a cynical person might assume that such a misleading title must have been generated by the company’s fabled algorithm (with Bloom thrown in to remind older viewers of Bloom County and its beloved penguin character, Opus).

publisher initially chose to market it more straightforwardly as Penguin The Magpie: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved A Family.

Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln play Sam and Cam on screen, but Penguin Bloom’s true stars are the various trained magpies who play Penguin (supplemented by occasional CG bird action).

But screenwriters Shaun Grant and Harry Cripps make the parallels between woman and bird so insultingly explicit that director Glendyn Ivin may as well have added an animated lightbulb repeatedly switching on over Sam’s head as she watches Penguin grow and flourish.