I don't often agonize over the titles of reviews. However, as I sat down to review the wonderful and touching 2006 film Miss Potter, I thought long and hard about what to call it.

I came very close to titling this review: "We Shall Give Them a Bunny Book to Conjure With!" This has got to be one of my all-time favorite lines in almost any film, and certainly in this particular film that captures a slice of life of one of my favorite children's authors, Beatrix Potter.

To provide a little context, the line is spoken to Beatrix by Norman Warne, the man who was about to publish her so-called "bunny book" (the now classic Peter Rabbit) back in 1902. Norman (played with bumbling earnestness by the talented Ewan McGregor) is the youngest of three brothers in the publishing business. His brothers didn't think much of his desire to join them in their work, so for his first assignment, they handed him an author they believed was sure to fail. "It won't sell ten copies," one of them sniggers, referencing the "bunny book" written by a proud, somewhat funny-looking maiden lady named Beatrix Potter (played with determined sunniness by Renee Zellweger). The fact that she'd never published a book, only sold some illustrations for greeting cards, and the fact that her story was a simple little tale for children, made the sophisticated brothers dismiss her out of hand. They fob her off on Norman, assuming the two of them will fade into obscurity together.

That's what makes Norman's blazing enthusiasm for the project so downright funny...and so charming. He wants to take this little book and make it a success, not only because he longs to prove himself in the family business, but because he sees something in the book that others have missed. The real Norman Warne was important in the life of Beatrix Potter for many reasons, not the least of which, as this movie emphasizes, because he was one of the first people to truly see and appreciate the artistry of her illustrations and prose.

A Biography and a Romance

What makes this piece of Beatrix Potter's life so compelling as a film is that Norman and Beatrix together really did give the world "a bunny book to conjure with." This is the story of a young woman (young by today's standards, though beginning to be considered middle-aged and dowdy as an unmarried 32 year old at the turn of the 20th century) waking up to her own talents and passions, and realizing that she could find purpose in serving the world with her gifts. Zellweger plays the part beautifully: though socially awkward and sometimes eccentric, her Beatrix is a likable lady and a determined one, and daily realizing how much more there is to life than than living in the social confines pressed upon her by her stilted, social climbing parents.

Certainly no one, least of all Beatrix's mother, ever expected her to succeed in such measure. The fact that she succeeded brilliantly, that Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and Jemima Puddleduck are still beloved household names and characters over a century after she put pen to paper, is part of the fairy-tale quality of this story. Besides chronicling her success as an author, however, director Chris Noonan wisely chose to highlight her early years of fame because they were also the years in which Beatrix fell in love for the first time. So much of the beauty of this story comes from the breath-taking ordinariness of a shy and introverted woman finally being loved and cherished for the treasure she always had been. Noonan and screenwriter Richard Maltby provide some tender and moving scenes for sweet and awkward Norman and Beatrix, whose happiness in finding one another (so late in both their lives by societal standards) beats palpably in almost every frame.

I read a biography of Beatrix Potter several years ago, and while it's been long enough that I've forgotten many of the exact details, I remember the contours of the story. Miss Potter seems true to those contours in every important respect. I'm sure the filmmakers must have altered details and chronology to tell the most coherent and powerful version of the story they could, but the overall framework is all here. This is the story of an intense and talented young girl growing up isolated and overly sheltered, raised by governesses and strict, distant parents, only to later blossom in both art and love. And then to find, right at the tender height of joy in both art and love, the bittersweet truth that her first love at least could not remain a permanent part of her life. It's a human story, in other words, about growth and gain and love and loss.

Romantics will enjoy this film, and so will literary buffs. Certainly anyone who has ever enjoyed a Beatrix Potter story will find much to appreciate in this portrait. It's rated PG, and I can't even recall why...older children (say 12 and up) would enjoy it, though I think the romance would likely fly over the heads of anyone younger.

The look of the film is beautiful: the photography of the green English countryside, especially the lake district, is so stunning that I found myself longing to catch the next plane headed over the pond. Period costumes and hairstyles are so perfect that McGregor and Zellweger, both very recognizable "contemporary" actors with well-known roles like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bridget Jones to their credit, seem gently folded into the colors, textures and backgrounds of this earlier time. If I hadn't tuned into McGregor's rich voice and luminous eyes, I'm not sure I would have recognized him at all behind the large mustache. He plays Norman with such affectionate tenderness that this has become my favorite of Ewan McGregor's roles. Likewise Zellweger, not a conventional beauty, brings real charm and zest to Beatrix.

The one perhaps "controversial" creative choice the filmmakers made (and the one bit I remembered hearing about before actually seeing the movie) was to use occasional animated sequences when Beatrix was drawing. Her pictures would sometimes come to life, winking at her, jumping off the page, or otherwise acting mischievous and unruly. Frankly, I loved this device and found it effective. If it had been used more, perhaps, it would have been obtrusive and a bit silly, but used sparingly, it underlined the realness of Beatrix' fictional world: the intensity with which she entered that world she was creating, the closeness she felt to the animal friends she drew (poignant early on because of her lack of deep human friendships) and the quirky unexpectedness of the creative process. The animated technique was used especially well in one sequence where Beatrix has just learned of a devastating loss. In her despair, she turns to the paints and paper that have always been her solace and finds that even these precious and familiar things have turned on her. Even as her own life story feels bleak, so the stories she has always found joy in creating have turned bleak. Her backgrounds turn dark and forbidding and her characters flee from her in fear, causing her to crumple page after page in despair. I found this simple scene moving and creative.

There is so much else to like and celebrate in this movie: Emily Watson's touching turn as the exuberant Millie Warne (Norman's sister, who became a dear friend of Beatrix); Nigel Westlake's lovely score; and the final few minutes that pay fitting tribute to the later years of Beatrix Potter's life, when she became an ardent conservationist. Many people who know her story as an author might not know that used the fortune she made from her bestselling children's books to save thousands of acres of farmland, slated for development, acres she later left to the National Trust. As is hinted at in the film, and later detailed in the DVD extras, the English countryside in her part of the world would look vastly different today if it hadn't been for her efforts to preserve the land. The introverted young woman grew up to leave a wonderful legacy, and not just on nursery shelves.

~befus, 2007

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD