Musings: Miss Potter

I'm a sucker for movies about writers, so when I saw previews for Miss Potter, I knew I'd want to see it. Of course, like most thoughtful movies about women, it lasted all of two nanoseconds in the theaters, so I had to wait for it to scale the Netflix queue. It was worth the wait.

Miss Potter, of course, is the Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck fame. This movie is a fanciful look at her life, including flashbacks to her privileged childhood and the process that brought us the most successful children's books of all time. It's a treat. Renée Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter, and Ewan MacGregor plays her publisher (and eventual fiancé) Norman Warne. The movie presents Beatrix in both her restrictive human world, the one that expects her to die a spinster because she won't accept any of the "suitable" young men her socially-focused mother insists on dragging home to tea, and the world of her imagination, populated by Peter, Jemima, Benjamin Bunny, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Director Chris Noonan injects a tiny bit of whimsy through animation--you all want to see Peter slip under Mr. MacGregor's gate, don't you?--and that little bit is like vital fairy dust.

The human Beatrix is every bit as enchanting as her stories, and when you find out what she does with all of her monster profits, you wish more people had her clear-eyed view of the world. It's a lovely story, beautifully done. You wish more women would flock to films like this instead of Sex and the City. I'm not knocking Carrie and Co., but if that kind of woman is the only one that makes Hollywood any money, then that's the only kind of woman we get to see. Miss Potter deserved a closer look.