Photo: Netflix
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). In truth, the film was adapted from an Australian memoir of the same name, though the book’s U.S. publisher initially chose to market it more straightforwardly as
Penguin The Magpie: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved A Family. Written by photographer Cameron Bloom (with Bradley Trevor Greive), and itself inspired by his family’s popular Instagram account, this bestseller chronicles the harrowing-to-heartwarming period immediately after his wife, Sam, suffered a spinal-cord injury that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Depressed and despondent, feeling utterly useless, Sam had trouble mentally much more than physically just getting out of bed in the morning… until one of