Directed by Chris Noonan
Written by Richard Maltby Jr.
Starring: Ren�e Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson, Matyelok Gibbs, Lloyd Owen, Anton Lesser, David Bamber
The love affair that Ren�e Zellweger has established with her fans will continue with this sweet story about children�s� book author Beatrix Potter, best known for the classic �Peter Rabbit.�
Apparently based on the true story of the life and loves of Miss Potter, her transformation from over-protected upper class marriage fodder to pre-suffrage eco-activist is faithfully documented in Richard Maltby�s screenplay and Zellweger�s workman-like performance. She brings to the table the same bright eyed hopefulness and bone-deep stubbornness to this role as she brought to her previous �Nurse Betty� and �Chicago� hits.
When director Chris Noonan adds the animal magnetism of his �Babe,� the result is a sweet, if predictable, success.
The costumes and sets of this period piece are turned out in an exquisite detail that has not been matched previously by any but a precious few films. These faithfully reproduced artifacts of 1900 England, by themselves, are worth the price of admission.
The picture starts with mom (Barbara Flynn) giving the young Beatrix a piece of her mind for wasting all her time on her senseless doodles instead of practicing how to move upward in society. The unfortunate Ms. Flynn is saddled throughout the film with the role of the grasping reactionary society-mom who has no desire for her daughter beyond marriage to a family at least a little higher up on the social scale.
Things get a little psychedelic now and then when Beatrix� drafted animals come to life on the pages and start to move around, but that�s about as weird as it gets. Fine viewing for the entire family throughout.
Beatrix spends all of her time either turning down potential suitors who seem to have been drawn from the local loony bin, writing and drawing her books or being turned down by publishers. On all occasions she is accompanied by her chaperone, Miss Wiggin, one of the many crystalline character actors that form the near-perfect back-drop for this film.
The setting is crucial to the story, since England prior to WWI existing in a brief period of calm between the storms. Potter�s family was part of the growing upper-middle class and had accumulated enough wealth to at least imitate actual royalty, donning their finery in salons and dinner parties and concentrating on living the life of the elite.
The fantasy of her social setting might well have contributed to her gift for fantasy in the stories she told. Her animal characters appropriated pretend identities, much like the real people around her. Diane Arbus chose circus freaks, Beatrix Potter drew her own.
To keep things moving, the story starts with her acceptance by a publishing house and the assignment of cute and keen Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor---�Star Wars,� �Trainspotting,� �Moulin Rouge�!) as her publisher. Like all publishers he says the right things and her book is a smash. Mom totally disapproves, of course, but Beatrix does as she pleases, an acting assignment that fits Zellweger�s hand like a glove.
Soon after Beatrix� assignment with Norman, Norman�s sister Millie (Emily Watson---�Hillary and Jackie� and �Breaking the Waves�) comes on to the scene and the two thoroughly modern women become chums in their plotting to preserve their freedom and make their mark on pre-war England.
As Beatrix grows with the success of her books, the camera shifts from inner city salons dripping with pearls and crystals to the fair farmlands of Isle of the Man and the Lake District of England.
At this point the photography and pacing settles into something more like James Herriot�s �All Creatures Great and Small� as Miss Potter continues to confound the establishment in a gentle way by buying farmland before it can fall into the hands of local developers who want to build the forerunners of America�s Wal-Marts.
It is here she finds her peace at last, as the pennies of the children she enthralled for the next hundred years find their place in the homes of the creatures by which she was inspired. An excellent film for the Christmas season and one of the few that the entire family can see together, and all come away with something.
It's hard to resist the unforced charms of Chris Noonan's "Miss Potter," even though you realize about halfway through that it'd be a better movie if the two main actresses had switched parts.
"Miss Potter" is, of course, Beatrix Potter, the creator of such beloved children's book characters as Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and Jemima Puddle-Duck. You've likely read the books at some time in your life it's hard to go through childhood or parenthood without at least a couple of titles landing in your library but probably don't know much about the woman behind them.
The film, written by "Miss Saigon" lyricist Richard Maltby Jr., deftly understands that beyond the charming illustrations, Potter's books had a weird, almost warped humor. Where did this come from? When we first see Miss Potter (Renee Zellweger), she's holed up in her parents' Kensington mansion, talking to her "friends" the bunnies and critters she drew who seem to be the only pals this lonely Londoner has.
Potter shops her Peter Rabbit book, trying to find a publisher.
When she succeeds, she hits the jackpot, finding both a champion for her work and the love of her life. The warm, respectful relationship between Potter and her publisher, Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor), forms the crux of the movie. They get my vote for the year's cutest couple.
Zellweger's playfulness works well opposite the winning McGregor, and I suppose for some people, she's the first person you'd call when you need a plucky heroine. Not me. Her affected old-timey Englishness can be grating, and when you see her opposite Emily Watson (playing Norman's sister), you daydream about what Watson would have done with the part. She's livelier, less mannered, a better actress and yes actually English.
But Watson isn't a box-office draw, so Zellweger does what she does and you either go with her coy, scrunchy-faced mannerisms or you don't. In the end, she's fine because the movie's Miss Potter, as conceived by Maltby and Noonan, is every bit as lovable as her "friends."
Ren�e Zellweger's tendency to scrunch up her face as adorable animals do finds its ideal match in "Miss Potter."
Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter, the writer and illustrator who created Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck and dozens of other adorable animals a century ago. Zellweger's director, Chris Noonan also has experience with adorable animals. He directed "Babe," the finest family film of modern times.
Zellweger pulls out the English accent she used as Bridget Jones and refines it a bit because Potter lived in an upper-class London neighborhood. Her home, appropriately, resembles the one in "Mary Poppins." "Miss Potter" reteams Zellweger with her "Down With Love" co-star Ewan McGregor and proves their chemistry in that overlooked gem was no fluke.
"Miss Potter" succeeds on its performances, its sunny re-creation of London from 100 years ago and a winsome tone than matches Zellweger's scrunchy face. This is a sweet story about a sweet person, which limits screenwriter Richard Maltby Jr.'s ability to make Potter's story anything more than diverting.
While it is a relief to learn the mother of Peter Rabbit didn't slip off to opium dens or had a second career creating those bizarre Victorian dirty joke books where people stuck their fingers through the pages to create lewd scenes, Beatrix Potter's life proceeded with little upheaval. Except for one great tragedy, relayed in the film, her life was a happy one. Happiness is great for reality but lousy for drama.
Making Maltby and Noonan's job harder is that Beatrix didn't crow about her triumphs or bemoan the injustices she faced. Other characters, notably Emily Watson as McGregor's sister, are called upon to point out Beatrix's achievements and paint her as the proto-feminist she did not see herself to be.
Beatrix was unmarried and 36 when she sought a publisher for her story, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit." Women, especially in her station, were expected to be married by their early 20s. If they did not marry, they were expected to remain in their parents' household and not attempt to make their own way in the world.
Though Beatrix defies these conventions, she does not seek to draw attention to herself. She also quietly rejects the snobbery of her mother (Barbara Flynn). After Beatrix's publisher, Norman Warne (McGregor) pays a visit, her mother says, "Please don't invite trades people into the house. They bring dust."
Beatrix's parents consider her artistic fascination with woodland animals an eccentricity. Her father (the wonderful Bill Paterson) is proud when her books become best sellers. Beatrix doesn't come into conflict with her parents until she falls in love with Warne. They forbid the engagement because he is beneath their class.
Warne is as modest and untarnished as Beatrix, and McGregor and Zellweger play their courtship with chasteness and joy. McGregor particularly seems to enjoy playing a young man who is shy and good-hearted, a role far removed from most of the characters he has played.
Noonan lends a magical realism to the tale of Beatrix Potter as her creations come to life on her drawing paper. She refers to them as if they were real, but Noonan wisely refrains from having the animals speak to her. That would have been too cute.
The balancing act that Noonan, Zellweger, McGregor and the rest pull off should not be underestimated. "Miss Potter" is sweet, but one overplayed gesture, one exaggerated editor or one artificial note in Nigel Westlake's score would have turned everything saccharine. "Miss Potter" may be disappointing because it is little more than pleasant, but it can be admired for being nothing less.
Based on the real life of Beatrix Potter, Renee Zellweger stars as the beloved British children�s author (Talk about economizing! She gets a chance to show off her dialect training in the THIRD movie where she plays a Brit. You would think she is Madonna or Gwyneth Paltrow with all of the Anglophile leanings). Beatrix is an oddity in turn of the century London as a 32-year old single lady who works as a greeting card artist, but yearns to bring her special characters to life in a children�s book. In an attempt to find a home for this Peter Rabbit she has created, Beatrix goes to every possible publishing house until the Warne Brothers decide to pick up the project and give it to their bumbling, inexperienced brother, Norman (Ewan McGregor), just to shut him up. Of course, Norman and Beatrix are ready to work extra hard to show those two what they can accomplish, and show them they do.
Will Peter Rabbit be successful? (Yes, obviously, I know it will be a success, but this is the part where I pose a big question about the movie, and that�s the best I can come up with)
Miss Potter has an infectious, light hearted feel to it that will keep you smiling throughout most of the movie, until it turns into every biopic you have seen before. Early on, director Chris Noonan and writer Richard Maltby, Jr. make Miss Potter cute and fun as we see Beatrix and Norman form a special relationship full of witty dialogue and a growing mutual respect for each other. It�s the nicest, purest and most heartwarming relationship you have seen in a movie this year. Plus, we get to watch Beatrix become a bigger part of the Warne family when she forms a friendship with Norman�s sister, Millie (Emily Watson), who, like Beatrix, is an unmarried thirtysomething just tickled pink to have someone to talk to about it all.
Also, early on, Miss Potter is a great story about overcoming the odds and convention. Even Beatrix�s own mother doesn�t quite believe she is going to be a success, and the best part of watching Zellweger�s performance is the joy and sense of accomplishment we see in Beatrix as the movie develops. Quite similarly, Norman�s brothers put up with him instead of encouraging and fostering his interest in the business, so we get to see McGregor showing us the character�s pluck, determination and personal interest in Beatrix. It�s a thrill to see them doing what it takes to make Peter Rabbit the book we know it as today.
However, Miss Potter falls into clich� as a major event changes Beatrix�s life, and the movie goes off on a tangent as the movie focuses on her later years as a conservationist and anti-development fighter. This turn removes the warmth, cuteness and lovableness of Miss Potter, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Maybe the producers had to promise to show this part of her life to get the rights to the story, but they should have expanded the portions about her early career and did the conservation stuff in one scene, or as a nice prologue at the end.
"Miss Potter" may remind some of "Finding Neverland," the surprise 2004 hit that starred Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.
Like that film, this sympathetic period drama tells a fictionalized version of the life story of a famous children's book author. And while it may not have the emotional hook of "Neverland," "Miss Potter" still has considerable charm.
This is also one of the few family-friendly films that really is all-age appropriate. (A couple of profanities are all that kept it from getting a G rating.)
As you may have guessed, the "Miss Potter" referred to by the title is Beatrix Potter, the author and artist of "Peter Rabbit," as well as other beloved children's books during the early 20th century. She's played by Renee Zellweger, who again adopts a credible British accent to play the character.
This film paints a portrait of Potter as an artistic, creative loner, still living with her well-to-do parents (Barbara Flynn and Bill Paterson) in her 30s.
Rather than finding a husband, she's busy trying to find a publisher for her stories. She eventually finds one in eager beaver Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor), who manages to turn "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" into a best-seller.
And as it turns out, she finds more than just a publisher. Norman is also clearly smitten with Beatrix, who feels the same way. But she has to contend with her parents, who disapprove of her relationship with a working-class man.
Director Chris Noonan (1995's "Babe") and first-time screenwriter Richard Maltby Jr. prove to be a good filmmaking team. Noonan also makes fine use of some digitally animated fantasy sequences that employ some of Potter's watercolor designs.
Speaking of pairings, Zellweger and McGregor � who re-team for the first time since 2003's "Down With Love" � work well together, and have believable chemistry. In fact, the entire ensemble cast is terrific. Emily Watson nearly steals the movie out from under the two leads, taking a meaty supporting role as Norman's feminist sister.
Ren�e Zellweger can talk to imaginary rabbits every bit as well as James Stewart could.
In "Miss Potter," a biopic about British children's author Beatrix Potter, who spoke to the forest-bound characters of her imagination and considered them friends, Zellweger excels at channeling the spirit of an eccentric genius.
Zellweger continues to stretch her acting range as she goes, sketching out a portrait of a driven introvert that matches the skill of her showings of a razzle-dazzle singer in "Chicago" and a frustrated single woman in "Bridget Jones's Diary."
Potter (1866-1943) was one of the most creative and successful of children's book authors. Her whimsical, self-illustrated books include the adventures of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Squirrel Nutkin.
Directed by Chris Noonan, "Miss Potter" catches up with Potter as an unmarried 32-year-old woman still living with her moneyed, social-climbing parents. Potter keeps mostly to herself and sits in her room drawing pictures and dreaming up stories of her characters.
To her snobby mother's disdain, Potter is not interested in going out to find a husband. Potter is bold, however, about getting her work published. She finds a house that will sell her work � it's a business run by uppity brothers who pass her project to their younger brother, Norman (Ewan McGregor), on a lark. Norman's impetus to make Potter's books succeed is twofold: to show up his brothers and to impress Potter, with whom he falls immediately in love.
The story depicts Potter as a woman oblivious to her talent and growing wealth. She writes because she must, consequences be damned. Her life seems to have been scandal-free, which makes for strong role modeling but weak drama.
As Noonan tells it, Potter didn't overcome very much. Her mother frowned upon her writing, but her father was supportive. She suffered the loss of a lover, but another suitor swept her away soon afterward. There's not much to the story other than Potter's odd tendency to speak to her drawings, which are animated to simulate the way she might have seen them in her imagination.
Potter is known as a literary heroine, but was also a conservationist, buying up farmland to keep it away from developers. Still, there's no way to make doing so exciting on film other than showing Potter win an auction and gaze lovingly at her pristine property.
The film has the tendency to slip into lapses of boredom, but it's better than most writer's biopics in the way it demonstrates the creative process. When Potter is at work, Zellweger takes her to a different realm. She convinces you that a woman can speak to imaginary bunnies.
Don't be surprised if you shed a little tear in Miss Potter. This enchanting biopic about the world of the creator of Peter Rabbit is warm and funny, revealing and moving. 'There's something delicious about writing the first words of a story,' says Ren�e Zellwegger's Beatrix Potter. 'You never know where they will take you.' For Potter, the direction of her life is fuelled by her imagination, and channeled into the characters she creates on paper - with pencil, paper and watercolour. First time writer Richard Maltby Jr has constructed an accessible script that canvasses the life and times of this classic children's author under the baton of director Chris Noonan in his first project since his debut feature, Babe.
Zellwegger imbues Potter with a mix of childlike wonder and independent strength of mind, as she battles against the attitude of the times, when women are expected to marry and stay at home. Flash-backs to her childhood (Lucy Boynton, outstanding as the young Beatrix) allow us to understand her circumstances. There's an air of restraint and formality about the world into which she is born. Home schooled, she lived a secluded life, compensating for her loneliness by creating her own friends that were inspired by her pets. But they were more than sketches to the child whose lively imagination allowed her to fabricate tales with which she amused herself and others. Her characters literally jumped off the page and kept her company throughout her life.
Her budding relationship with Ewan McGregor's publisher Norman Warne unfolds beautifully, despite the ever-present watchful eye of a chaperone. When Potter meats Warne's spinster sister Millie (Emily Watson), there's an instant connection 'I warn you - I am prepared to like you very much,' Millie states, after which time she quickly becomes an ally. Also canvassed is the fractious relationship with Potter's snooty mother (Barbara Flynn), and her supportive father (Bill Paterson). There are some lovely touches when characters like Peter Rabbit wiggles his ears or Jemima Puddle-Duck delivers a dose of attitude, with the magic of subtle animation. 'Any more of that and I'll paint you out,' warns Potter.
Noonan's film captures the essence of the Beatrix Potter's magic, making the film not only an involving and enjoyable treat, but ensuring a new revival of her unforgettable characters.
How you respond to "Miss Potter" may depend almost entirely on your reaction to Renee Zellweger's performance as British author Beatrix Potter.
You may find her an irresistible force as she scuttles along with the determination of her beloved hedgehog, Mrs. Tiggywinkle. Or you may wish blasphemously to slap those rosy-apple cheeks each time she squinches her foxy little eyes and purses her mouth to bite off a sentence in her passable British accent.
I hope most of us who grew up on Potter's tales of Peter Rabbit and his farm companions - I was especially fond of Pigling Bland - read them with youngsters today.
Much as I admire this plucky child of privilege, who was 36 when she became a best-selling author in 1902, I didn't find her life compelling in this version by screenwriter Richard Maltby Jr. and director Chris Noonan. (Maltby, a Broadway lyricist and producer for 30-plus years, makes his script debut; Noonan last directed in 1995, achieving immortality with "Babe.")
Times have changed, and it's hard to weep with a 40-year-old, independently wealthy woman who crumples because her parents won't give her permission to marry the "tradesman" who publishes her. (Ewan McGregor commits completely to this genteel suitor's role, looking utterly at ease in Edwardian England).
The film later stresses Potter's protofeminist side, especially when she buys farm property to keep it out of the hands of disfiguring developers, but it also suggests a woman can be completely happy only with a husband. The publisher's sister (Emily Watson) insists single life without cares is ideal for her, then bluntly confesses she'd give anything to get hitched to the right man.
Watson (whom I'd have preferred as Potter) leads a procession of fine British actors in supporting roles: Bill Paterson and Barbara Flynn as Potter's snobbish parents, Lloyd Owen as an idealistic attorney, Phyllida Law as the publisher's mother. Zellweger, the lone American, seems a tad too careful when speaking to her illustrated "friends," as if making sure to avoid missteps.
The filmmakers bring these drawings to life on the page, and animals interact with Potter in welcome touches of whimsy. But Noonan commits wholeheartedly to a new vision only once, as young Beatrix watches her parents drive off to a ball and sees the "coachmen" and "horses" as creatures from her drawings.
That type of fancy would have been welcome throughout the film. Without it, we get plenty of piglings, both real and imagined, but they remain rather bland.
As a child I couldn't stand Beatrix Potter, and not just because her cute, jacketed critters bored me senseless. I loved tough children's tales, but Potter's stories were manipulative and twisted, filled with punitive authority figures�Mrs. Rabbit is a prissy scold, Farmer McGregor an evil-tempered lout�visiting tight-lipped moral justice on insipid mice, bunnies, and the truly insufferable Jemima Puddle Duck. Small wonder that poor Peter Rabbit cowers under the bedclothes on all those quaint plates and mugs that fuel the multimillion-dollar Potter industry.
How the Potter franchise continues to flourish in this age of permissive parenting is either a mystery or a case of marketing trumping ideology, but surely there's a meaty drama to be made about the dark forces that drove this dyed-in-the-wool Victorian. Director Chris Noonan and screenwriter Richard Maltby Jr. are having none of it. Blackness may have lurked within the Potter heart, but you'd never know it from Miss Potter, which shifts the burden of ill humor onto the lady author's petit bourgeois mother (the excellent Barbara Flynn), thus freeing Ren�e Zellweger to perk up Beatrix into a chipper cross between Bridget Jones and Mary Poppins.
Bronzed and russet all over, with a quaintly autumnal production design to match, Zellweger's Beatrix bustles about, flashing the Zellweger sour-lemons smile, dispensing maidenly charm as she shepherds her little tales from soup to nuts with only grudging help from a whiskered family of publishers, save for the youngest brother, Norman (a wishy-washy Ewan McGregor). Smiling nervously as if not to unseat the mustache precariously affixed to his upper lip, this Mr. McGregor does nothing to convince us that the pallid swain is the love of Beatrix's life, his untimely death withering her creative juices until a sensible country solicitor (Lloyd Owen) restores her to pink-cheeked vivacity.
By most accounts, Potter was a serious workaholic monomaniacally devoted to the purity of her vision. Undaunted, Noonan and Maltby are determined to squeeze her life into a run-of-the-mill romance in which love heals all wounds. Voiceover and flashbacks work overtime to convince us of Beatrix's untended childhood, though it's far from clear that she was any lonelier than other well-to-do Victorian tykes, most of whom were left to the tender mercies of nannies and governesses while their parents scratched away at the nouveau-mercantile pecking order. Potter's parents may have been social climbers, but there's scant evidence that poor Mrs. P. deserved to be retooled as the philistine nag on whom Mrs. Rabbit may have been modeled.
And so we leave Beatrix, a merry chipmunk, scribbling and sketching in the sun by a suspiciously blue lake in a part of England known for its unrelenting rain. In real life, she married her solicitor, gave up writing, and devoted herself to buying up half the land in the Lake District from under the filthy mitts of marauding developers. I doubt whether Potter, a woman who battled her way to fame, wealth, and a pioneering spot in the conservation movement in a world where women mostly sat and sewed, bore any resemblance to the film's serenely girlish figure. This may be why the only bright spots in Miss Potterare the all-too-sparing special effects, in which Peter and his pals come to life, rise up, and quite understandably scuttle away from their wimpy creator.