Paulie is a 1998 American adventurecomedy-drama film directed by John Roberts and written by Laurie Craig. The film follows the adventurous story of the eponymous Paulie, a talking parrot who is capable of communicating with humans. It stars Jay Mohr as the voice of the title character, alongside Gena Rowlands, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, and Bruce Davison.
It received mixed-to-positive reviews and was a box office disappointment, grossing $26.9 million domestically against a $23 million budget. However, in the years after its release, Paulie would find a larger audience on home media sales. The film marked Buddy Hackett's last feature film appearance before his death in 2003.
Plot
While working as a janitor at an American institute, Russian immigrant Misha Vilyenkov encounters Paulie, a wisecracking and loudmouthed blue-crowned conure who can speak as clearly as a human. Subsequently, he doesn't speak a word when Misha brings Dr. Reingold, the head of the institute, and other scientists to witness him.
Frustrated with Paulie at first, Misha relents and opens up about his homesickness. Paulie warms up to Misha, and he tells him his story about his original owner, a little girl named Marie who stutters. The story transitions to a flashback when he was gifted to her in his infancy. As Marie works on speech therapy, he begins to speak. Her father, Warren, a soldier, returns home from Vietnam and decides that Paulie is not helping her, believing their bond is disillusioning Marie's reality due to her claims of his ability to talk; Paulie never spoke to her parents out of fear towards them, and also refused to learn how to fly due to acrophobia. After a near-death experience in which she falls off the roof in an attempt to teach Paulie to fly, Warren sends him away, devastating Marie.
Paulie is passed down to various owners and eventually ends up in a pawn shop where he spends his time insulting the customers. One day, a shady customer named Benny shows interest in purchasing him, thinking he could profit from his speaking abilities, until widowed artist Ivy purchases him first with the intent of reforming his ill behavior after he insults her. She befriends Paulie and agrees to help him find Marie, who has moved to Los Angeles. They begin traveling using her mobile home, but when she becomes blind in the middle of their trip, Paulie decides to stay and take care of her. She eventually passes away, and Paulie, having finally learned to fly, continues his journey.
In East Los Angeles, Paulie joins a group of performing conures owned by migrant musician Ignacio, temporarily forgetting about Marie as he develops feelings for a female conure named Lupe. At one of his performances, Benny, having also moved to Los Angeles, recognizes him and attempts to purchase him from Ignacio. When Ignacio refuses, Benny makes a prank call to the police at one of his performances. As the police show up, Benny kidnaps Paulie amidst the chaos as Ignacio is arrested and presumably deported. Under Benny's influence, Paulie begins a life of crime. In a botched jewel theft, he flies down through the chimney of a house, where he gets caught by its owner. Benny flees the scene, betraying and abandoning Paulie in the process.
Paulie is then brought to the institute, where Reingold, his employees and fellow scientists are stunned by his ability to speak to humans. They subject him to speech testing, and Reingold promises that he will be reunited with Marie once finished. Paulie overhears Reingold privately revealing that, though Marie has been found, the institute has instead covered this up and decided to keep him as their property. Realizing he's been lied to all this time, a resentful Paulie humiliates Reingold in front of his scientific peers by acting like an ordinary parrot, disrespecting him and his assistants while refusing to cooperate with more tests. He then calls out Reingold's deception, and tries to make a break for it. As a result, his wings are clipped and he is eventually imprisoned in the basement when he starts pecking the researchers.
Moved by Paulie's story, Misha decides to release him and take him to Marie. They find Marie's contact information in Reingold's office, only to be caught by him. Misha stands up to Reingold for his cruelty to Paulie and gladly resigns. They narrowly escape the institute, just after releasing the other caged animals in the testing lab. The duo reach Marie's address, and find her as a beautiful young woman unrecognizable to Paulie. After singing a song her mother sang to her as a child, Paulie realizes that she is Marie and they happily reunite. He also realizes he can fly again as his feathers have regrown. Misha prepares to depart, but Paulie and Marie offer him to stay. Misha, evidently infatuated with Marie, decides to accept. The film ends with the trio happily entering her house.
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Directed by John Roberts and written by Laurie Craig, the film's production budget was $23 million.[2]
Craig mentioned in an interview, "Paulie was an original story of mine. I was inspired by seeing a lone parrot in a cage and I wondered what it would be like if he could actually tell me his life story. Then I read about the amazing African Grey parrot named Alex who had a large vocabulary and was very bonded with his researcher."[3]
During the production of the film, 14 trained blue-crowned conures were used to portray the titular character, with other conure species such as nanday, jenday and cherry-headed conures appearing in supporting roles.[4]
Exterior shots of young Marie's house were filmed in Azusa, CA, on the corner of N. Soldano Ave. and Sixth St. Unfortunately, the house was demolished a couple of years after production, and the lot was split up for smaller homes. The production team mailed thank you letters to the residents along the street for the inconvenience.
Reception
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Box office
Box office receipts grossed $5,369,800 on the opening weekend, and $26,875,268 total.[5] It was released in 1,812 North American theaters.[2]
Critical response
The film scored a 62% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 37 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10.[6] It was distributed in 24 countries and 10 different languages between 1998 and 1999.[citation needed]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Times gave the film two stars out of four and said, "Dogs and cats, horses and monkeys and even bears make charismatic movie stars, but "Paulie", I think, suggests that birds are more decorative than dramatic."[7] Tracey Moore of Common Sense Media gave the film a four stars out of five and said, "Talking bird on a coming-of-age journey with some peril."[8]
