Penelope is different. It’s the kind of different that makes you grateful that independent creators are still getting things made. Penelope was directed by Mel Eslyn who created and wrote it with Mark Duplass.
Megan Stott is Penelope. She is always on the screen and carries all 10 episodes almost alone. When she’s on a camping trip with friends, she makes eye contact with a wolf. This triggers something in her.
She leaves her friends and walks into town. She buys $400 worth of camping gear, hops on a freight train and heads for the Cascades. She leaves a message for her parents telling them not to worry and turns off her phone.
The plot is often unrealistic in story terms, but Penelope’s journey of self-discovery is raw and real.
She runs into people who help her. They give her rides, beds. A couple of campers she meets in the forest give her fire starting tools, food, and a knife. She meets a protestor living on a platform high in a tree, Helena (Krisha Fairchild). Helena is a philosopher at heart and talks about how all the trees are connected and communicate. She talks about inherited trauma passed from mother to daughter. She gives Penelope a lot to think about.
She meets three young guys on a religious quest. She takes one of them, Peter (Rhenzy Feliz), into her sleeping bag. Virginal Catholic boys out in the forest writing songs about faith don’t carry condoms, do they?
She befriends a baby bear that she treats like a puppy until the mamma bear shows up with tooth and claw bared.
It sounds like a lot of action, but it’s really quiet. She has to learn how to start a fire, how to cook, how to catch a fish, how to purify water, how to find food that isn’t poisonous. There are many scenes with no dialog, just Penelope working with determination to figure out how to survive in the forest. She will not give up.
People ask her why she’s doing this, and she is not clear with an answer. She says things like how she feels empty and wants to fill herself back up. There is a shocking revelation in the last few seconds of the final episode that reveals what her reason probably is, but until then it’s just watching her determination and resilience in the face of every obstacle.
This series is slow and quiet. There’s lots of looking at trees and stars, sniffing berries and mushrooms, and struggling with shelter. In one sense, not much is happening, but from another perspective Penelope is figuring out how to live with herself.
This isn’t a series everyone will enjoy. I hope my review can help you decide if this is for you. It’s streaming on Netflix if you want to give it a chance.
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