MovieReview

Miss Potter

“Miss Potter is one of the sweetest, most charming and beautiful movies of the year.” – Jeffery Lyons, NBC’s Reel Talk

Very much early than the worldly famous teenager wizard, the surname Potter was also famous and yet fantasy-related. With a series of 23 children’s books, Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), and his beloved talking animals, such as the naughty Peter Rabbit, has enchanted a generation of children and yet had become one of the most well-succeeded writer of literature in history. Now, Chris Noonan has gifted the audience with a movie as so charming and sweet as Beatrix’s tales.

The plot pictures flashbacks of Beatrix’s childhood, beautifully mixed with her current time, at the age of thirty’s, as to explain Beatrix personality. At the time when most young women of her class aimed only to make a good marriage, Beatrix became an icon. She grew up in the British aristocracy of 1860s, which definitely shaped Beatrix into a introspective person, magically performed by Renée Zellweger. The flashbacks, somehow connected to present moments, are responsible to provide the audience enough material to get into Beatrix’s world, inviting us to dive into her mind and heart. Beatrix used to draw and paint – and talk – with the animals since her childhood, and then made up stories for them. Most of the characters of her later works were by the publishing time already created, which happened only when she met Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor), her publisher and later, her fiancé. Norman Warne was the youngest of two publisher brothers, who desperately wanted to show he was fit for the job, which made his brothers gifted him with they described as “bunny book”. Norman then, took the chance and turned Peter Rabbit and his mates into a success. Later they grow a strong relationship of first, friendship and later, sincere love.

Noonan main focus is to draw the film as beautiful and sweet as Beatrix’s work itself, creating by far a romantic atmosphere powered by the delightful movie photography and animated animals who literally come to life, a mix of traditional filmmaking and animation. It’s wonderful to see Jemina Puddle-Duck swinging her cotton-tail in an infant-like behaviour tricking with her painter. Useless to speak about the score: majestically representing all the feelings and soul of the movie. Summing up: Song, photography, light, camera angle, costume are all one single unity in this film to power it with the sweetest and cutest story of Miss Potter.