Movie Review: Miss Potter

There are times of the year when I get more than my money's worth on my Netflix subscription. But most of the time I'm pretty sure I end up spending $10 or so per dvd because I let them gather dust for weeks and weeks without watching or returning any. I try not to think about it too hard, because I love the convenience of Netflix, "shopping" for movies, making lists (I love lists!), and frankly I just don't want to admit that it might not be all that cost effective. For the last, I don't know, five weeks or so I've had the same three movies stacked on top of the player, waiting to be viewed (just did the math: that's $7.08 per dvd--ack!), and yesterday I blew the dust off one of them and sat down to watch.

Miss Potter is based on the life story of Beatrix Potter, the British author of The Tales of Peter Rabbit and many other beloved children's classics. It stars Renee Zellweger as Beatrix and Ewan McGregor as her publisher and mustachioed love of a lifetime, Norman. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say about the movie itself. It was pretty run of the mill British period drama, kinda slow paced and a little dull at times. But fans of her illustrations might like the bits of animation sprinkled throughout the film, although I personally found them to be awkward and inconsistent. They also served to highlight something that grated on me the whole movie: Either Renee Zellweger failed completely at capturing "endearingly quirky" in her portrayal, or Beatrix Potter was across the board cuh-razy. She kept telling everyone that her drawings were "real," called them "my friends," talked to them, scolded them for being cheeky, etc. I think the intention was to be cute, but instead it was disturbing and creepy. And the way Renee played it, I wondered if the movie was going to end with her being commited to an asylum. (Or a "sanitarium," as I suppose they would have called it back then. In case you're interested, that doesn't happen--despite one highly-justifiable bout of depression.) So I felt pretty blah about the story, script, and all that. However, I do have some things to rant about.....

One, that promotional poster? It has to be doctored, because Renee Zellweger's eyes are like half that size. And throughout the whole first half of this movie they're more like one-fourth that size, because she keeps her face screwed up into a prissy, tight, painfully pursed expression nonstop. I think it's in Breakfast of Champions that Kurt Vonnegut draws an illustration of what he thinks an anus looks like (sorry, I know this is too crude for some of you, so forgive me), and it looked something like this: That's what Renee's face looked like for a good full hour. In fact, this illustration was just about all I could think of whenever I looked at her because, kids, her mouth looked exactly like that. I mean it.

The second half of the movie she looked like Frumpy McFrumperton, a la Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (remember how bad she looked in that???): This photo has to be doctored, too, because she doesn't look all that bad. But I'm telling you, in the film the girl looked broke down. Hair all akimbo, complexion rough, skin red and splotchy like a spanked behind..... Was their budget so low that they couldn't afford hair and makeup people? She's a beautiful girl and quite capable of looking radiant and lovely. Why, then, does she so frequently appear in movies looking like a boiled chicken? I truly don't get it.

Let's see....what else bugged me......? That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'll post a revision should anything come to mind......