Paulie is a 1998 American adventure comedy-drama film directed by John Roberts and written by Laurie Craig.

It stars Jay Mohr as the voice of the title character, alongside Gena Rowlands, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, and Bruce Davison.

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.

Paulie warms up to Misha, and he tells him his story about his original owner, a little girl named Marie Alweather who stutters.

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.

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 named Lupe.

Paulie overhears Reingold privately revealing that he and the institute have found Marie’s whereabouts, but concealed this information from him so that he would remain 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.

[4] Exterior shots of young Marie's house were filmed in Azusa, CA, on the corner of N. Soldano Ave. and Sixth St.

"[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.