Movie Review: Miss Potter (2006) - Mon., May 20

From Star Trek Into Darkness to Miss Potter. How diverse is my movie watching? Quite!

Miss Potter is based on the life of Beatrix Potter, a very popular children's book author. Surely you've heard of or remember stories of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter Rabbit. All are creations from Beatrix Potter's imagination.

The film from 2006 takes place inthe late 1800s to early 1900s in England and Scotland. Beatrix, whose imagination brought to life the lives of bunnies, pigs, rats, mice, geese and other animals, started out creating greeting cards from her art. But she dreamed of much more. She wanted to be a published children's book author.

In the movie, Beatrix, accompanied by her chaperone, takes her stories and artwork to publishing houses trying to sell them on printing her stories. She wanted to keep the sizes of her books small and the art in black and white to make the books affordable for as many families as possible. One publishing company offers her a book deal, but the two brothers who own the company don't want to have anything to do with it. Their youngest brother (Mr. Norman Warne) has just joined the firm, so they assign him to work with Beatrix. Through his knowledge and vision, Beatrix's books can be published affordably in color.

Miss Potter and Mister Norman Warne spend countless hours together working on getting her books ready for publishing, getting the art colors just right, and proving to the older brothers in the firm, and to Beatrix's own mother, that her stories with hand-painted art appeal to a large portion of the population.

Miss Potter and Mr. Warne fall in love much to the dismay of her parents who are nouveau riche because of inheritances on both sides of the family. They believe Norman, as a trademan, is beneath Beatrix's status. Beatrix disagrees and stands up to her parents. In a compromise, Beatrix agrees to accompany her family to England's Lake District for the summer. If the love is still strong at the end of summer, her parents agree she can marry. She promptly tells them, "Plan on an October wedding."

Off they go to their holiday home in the Lake District. Beatrix and Norman write love letters to each other, until one day his letters stop arriving. Beatrix is convinced Norman is on holiday in an area with slow postal service. But that is not the case.

I will not give away any more of the story. That is for you to find out.

Beatrix Potter led an interesting, proper life, until mid-adulthood when she ditched British properness and decided to start living her life as her own.

This movie rates five out of five stars. Renee Zellweger is perfect as Beatrix Potter.

Travel Bug out.