Paulie (1998) on Netflix
PG19981h 31mAdventureComedyDrama
Paulie, a talking blue-crowned conure, stays silent when janitor Misha Vilyenkov brings the institute's scientists to hear him. To Misha he tells of Marie Alweather, the girl who first owned him.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.6/1017,656 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
Misha Vilyenkov, a Russian immigrant, is a janitor at an American research institute where a blue-crowned conure named Paulie is housed and neglected. Paulie can speak as clearly as a person, but he says nothing when Misha brings Dr. Reingold and the other scientists to hear him. Misha, frustrated at first, opens up about his homesickness, and Paulie warms to him and tells his story. Paulie was given as a gift to Marie Alweather, a little girl who stutters, and he began to speak while she worked at her speech therapy. He never spoke to her parents. Her father, Warren, a soldier, returns home and decides the bird is not helping her, because Marie insists that Paulie can talk.
Cast
- Peter Baschas Graduate Student #1
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Paulie (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Fourteen trained blue-crowned conures were used to portray Paulie on screen, with other conure species, including nanday, jenday, and cherry-headed conures, filling supporting bird roles.
- Screenwriter Laurie Craig said the idea for Paulie came to her after seeing a lone parrot in a cage and wondering what it would be like if it could tell its own life story, an idea she developed further after reading about Alex, a real African Grey parrot famous for his large vocabulary and close bond with his researcher.
- The real house used for young Marie's home exteriors, on the corner of North Soldano Avenue and Sixth Street in Azusa, California, was demolished a few years after filming and its lot split up for smaller homes, and the production mailed thank-you letters to neighbors on the street for the disruption.
- Paulie was a box office disappointment, grossing $26.9 million domestically against a $23 million budget, but in the years after its release it would find a much larger audience on home media sales.
