MISS POTTER Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
MGM/The Weinstein Company
Grade: B+
Directed by: Chris Noonan
Written By: Richard Maltby, Jr.
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Emily Watson, Ewan McGregor
Screened at: Dolby 88, NYC, 11/28/06
Opens: December 29, 2006 If you rank as one of the best in any field of broad
interest–sports, writing, composing–someone will be tempted to
write your biography. What made this person so great? It helps
if you've had an unusually interesting life. Steve Shainberg must
have realized this when he fictionalized a good deal of his
movie, "Fur," an "imaginary" life of the photographer Diane
Arbus, inventing for her an upstairs liaison so hirsute that some
thought of the movie as a modern "Beauty and the Beast." Beatrix Potter, the nonpareil, best-selling author of children's
books, was an interesting enough person, one whose talent for
writing and, more important, for drawing cute little animals that
would appeal to children did not become known to anyone, not
even to her own parents, until she was thirty-two years of age.
While she was fascinated by bunnies even as a ten-year-old,
and sketched adorable creatures since then, it was not until she
broke with the conventional rules of Victorian England and took
her drawings to a publisher that her life was turned upside
down. Potter, whose productive years occurred during the latter years
of England's Victorian period, is both a victim of the repressive
times and a maverick. As played lovingly by Renee Zellweger,
with broad smiles, her hair in a tight bun, the author of "The
Tale of Peter Rabbit" (who, though partial to hares did not
exclude a squirrel, several mice, a kitten, a duck and some
piglets) defied custom by rejecting every suitor her parvenu
parents brought around to meet her. At a time that a woman
was either married in her twenties or a virtual outcast, Potter,
who had no friends aside from her own creations, seemed
content enough to live with her folks, Rupert Potter (Bill
Paterson) and Helen Potter (Barbara Flynn). In her younger
years (played by Lucy Boynton) she had smuggled several
small animals into her spacious home, a manor decorated with
servants as was her family's country home in the Lake District. While scripter Richard Maltby Jr. skips over how her gender
prevented her from enrolling at the Royal Botanical Gardens at
Kew, director Chris Noonan, celebrated for the remarkably
delightful "Babe," points out her forwardness in introducing
herself to a publishing outfit. The company agreed without
optimism to publish her first book only to give the family misfit,
Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor) something to do. As the
professional relationship between Warne and Potter grew, so
did their affection for each other, a fondness actively
discouraged by Potter's social-climbing parents who looked
upon tradesmen as members of a lower station. McGregor, equipped with a thick mustache (which must have
tickled Potter when he planted what may have been the
woman's first kiss on her lips), serves the story well as the
former misfit who encourages the author-illustrator while his
own lonely life is transformed by love. Cinematographer
Andrew Dunn shows his love for the English countryside as
well, capturing rolling hills and estates of areas like the Lake
District, Sussex, and the Isle of Man–important because Potter,
wealthy from sales of her books, was able to defy urban
developers by buying up large stretches of terrain which she
eventually turned over to the National Trust for preservation. Visit any Barnes and Noble and you're sure to find several of
her children's books most definitely in print. If you have children
with Potter's imagination, don't be surprised if they, like the
author, see the drawings not only in three dimensions but in
motion. One of the great delights of the movie is that Noonan
underplays the animation, making each swivel of a bunny's
head or twitching of her ears a pleasure to behold. Not Rated. 98 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
