Penguin Bloom, the Movie
Confession: I first did not want to watch this movie because I felt it would be too much like work, because its protagonist has a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). But curiosity got the better of me. I also knew there was some healing (psychosocial, not physical) involved, so that would make it some form of a feel-good movie. That it took place in Australia made me want to watch it too. I might as well put the medical humanities hat on and given in. I watched it Monday morning – it was a good way to escape the Australian summer heat (high of 35 degrees C, 95 degrees F today).
The movie is based on a book, which tells the true story of Sam Bloom – a nurse married to a photographer, Cam Bloom. Sam and Cam have three sons who do not have rhyming names as they do. Cam Bloom’s book about their experiences chronicles the healing they found as a family through taking care of a baby magpie they christened “Penguin”…. thus the title, Penguin Bloom.
The film-makers did a good job portraying T6 complete paraplegia, including such SCI medical complications like lower limb muscle spasms and catheter + leg bag, and of course all the psychosocial stuff with adjustment. To be nitpicky about it, she could have inverted her ankles more with the spasm, but that’s forgivable. They did get a lightweight wheelchair (thank you for your accuracy, props department) but the wheeling technique was suboptimal in some spots… again, that’s me being nitpicky. Oh, and bonus points for adaptive sports! On reading about the film later, the Blooms were very involved in production and I’m guessing they made sure the medical stuff was accurate. If not them, then the film had pretty good medical consultants on board.
The movie was released in theaters on Jan 21 in Australia, and available on Netflix in the US, parts of Europe and Asia on Jan 27.
