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Miss Potter (2006)
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Theatrical Release: Dec 29, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $2,893,474
Synopsis: Beatrix Potter has delighted generations of children with her books. But she kept her own private life locked carefully away. Oscar-winning star Renee Zellweger is now bringing her secret story to the screen in "Miss Potter," the first film directed by Chris Noonan since his charming 1995... Beatrix Potter has delighted generations of children with her books. But she kept her own private life locked carefully away. Oscar-winning star Renee Zellweger is now bringing her secret story to the screen in "Miss Potter," the first film directed by Chris Noonan since his charming 1995 movie, Babe. It is set in the high summer days of late Victorian and Edwardian England, during which Beatrix develops her natural skills as artist and story-teller. When she finally publishes her debut book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, she becomes a writing celebrity. It also leads to courtship and her first love with publisher Norman Warne, played by Ewan McGregor. Their relationship and his marriage proposal in July, 1905, was to change Beatrix's life for ever. It was a love which she could not announce - or even talk about. In high-society London, her parents had insisted she keep it from friends and neighbours. They considered her proposed wedding a mismatch. Warne, they said, was from ‘trade' and demanded that she carefully reconsider their life together. Beatrix allowed herself to be persuaded to leave her fiancé and London. It was supposed to be a time for reflection and calm. But, instead, she faced tragedy and loneliness and returned, with a different outlook. She became a woman of strong views and independence. She also built up a farming dynasty in the Lake District - a dynasty over which she took charge long after her writing career virtually ended in 1913. It established her as a woman ahead of her time. Despite becoming the world's most successful children's writer and a wealthy landowner and prize-winning farmer, she never forgot her first love. -- © Weinstein Co. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Emily Watson, Ewan McGregor, Lloyd Owen
Producer: Mike Medavoy, David Thwaites, Arnold Messer, Corey Sienega
Composer: Nigel Westlake
DVD Info
Release:
Jun 19, 2007
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- Keep Case
- Widescreen
Audio:
- Audio Commentary - Chris Noonan - Director
- Behind the Scenes - Making Of
- Featurettes - "The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter"
- Music Video - "When You Taught Me How to Dance" - Katie Melua
- Trailers - Theatrical Trailer
Reviews
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.
A Beatrix Potter biopic: So much more than just cute and fuzzy bunnies.
While it cannot sustain the fairytale enchantment of something like Finding Neverland, Miss Potter is, nonetheless, a worthy and sweet, middle-of-the-road biopic.
There's nothing inherently wrong with MISS POTTER. It's just a throwback to the biopics of the 1930s and 40s and in some ways it may seem progressive to contemporary audiences.
Much like star Renée Zellweger's portrayal of its famous title character, Miss Potter is a strange, split-personality kind of thing.
Portraying a real-life hero can be a tough assignment. But Zellweger breezes through the role, flashing her puckish grin, talking in her soft, breathy voice and giving very human face to one of the most beloved figures of English letters.
For fans of Potter's work, "Miss Potter" is indispensable. But even viewers with the haziest memories of those unique little books will enjoy spending 90 minutes inside her idyllic world.
Director Chris Noonan ('Babe') gives us a story with the right balance of humor, pathos and romance.
Deftly navigating the line between the sublime and the saccharine ...
A film of no little charm, Chris Noonan's Miss Potter never quite gets out of 'Biopic Basic' mode despite occasional murmurings of a desire to be something more.
Something of a muddle....The level of social criticism and psychological portraiture shifts from Howard's End to Mary Poppins.
Miss Potter is not a bad film, but it is a more tepid treatment than the facts of her life would seem to call for. Beatrix Potter deserves better.
It's buttoned-up to a fault, as proper as clotted cream, and at times as exciting.
[Zellwegger's and McGregor's] performances bring great joy to this picture, which is slight but satisfying, like a favorite children's book revisited as an adult.
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.
Even a third-act tragedy can't taint the picture's perpetual cheeriness -- which works fine when Miss Potter functions as a wholesome family film and not so well when it strives for some measure of dramatic heft.
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