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Miss Potter
The Weinstein Company / MGM
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for brief mild language
Starring
Renée Zellweger,
Ewan McGregor,
Emily Watson,
Barbara Flynn,
and
Bill Paterson
An exploration of the life of Beatrix Potter, the author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," the beloved and best-selling children's classic. The film tells the story of Potter's (Zellweger) love for her publisher Norman Wayne (McGregor) and her strong attempt for an independent life during a time when society expected woman of her class simply to make a good marriage. (The Weinstein Company)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Richard Maltby Jr.
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Chris Noonan
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 19, 2007
Theatrical: December 29, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
92 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK / USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
In every way, Miss Potter is a very beautiful thing.
91
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
It's first-class entertainment for bookish lads and lasses of all ages - and for those who never have or never will crack a paperback's spine. And it might inspire today's nascent artists to open up their sketch-pads as well as their hearts and minds.
83
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
In addition to being a beloved author and illustrator, Beatrix is also presented as an early feminist and environmentalist who took control of her literary empire and saved vast acres of luscious farmland from greedy developers, eventually bequeathing property to Britain's National Trust.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
In many ways, a magical little movie in its own right, and a thoroughly pleasant experience.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
With its lack of pretensions, Miss Potter is that rare breed of cinematic animal: a movie whose entire goal is to entertain and perhaps apply a gentle touch to the heart.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
It is a lovely film for the holiday season, as well as afterward, and is reminiscent of "Finding Neverland," without the darker undercurrents.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Miss Potter, right to the end, is the definition of a "nice" movie, and that makes it a genuine oddball in a universe of increasingly distressed and uncivilized pop culture.
70
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
A very gentle-spirited picture, but it's not a self-consciously precious one.
70
Time
Richard Corliss/Richard Schickel
The director, Chris Noonan, doesn't play to our sentiments, he just lets them naturally evolve--even the animation of a few of her (Potter's) drawings doesn't feel especially forced. The result is an honorable and curiously winning film.
63
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Endearing without being especially engaging.
63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Maybe Miss Potter will be best appreciated on video when you will intuitively know when to turn it off. On the other hand, Potter's pastel illustrations, which often come to life to her and to the camera's eye, deserve the larger canvas. Tough call.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
At 92 minutes, the film has the economy of a Potter story, but not the shapeliness or the zip.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
With its tasteful palette and twee charm, Miss Potter is the china plate of movies, a Peter Rabbit collectible entirely suitable for mounting on the nursery wall.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
A scenic, well-behaved account of Potter's life and times.
60
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Miss Potter hardly deserves ridicule. It's sweet with lovely Lake District vistas and a heartfelt endorsement of land conservation. It will certainly play well with older audiences and the kind of adolescent girls who draw faces in their O's.
60
Empire
Angie Errigo
Pitched awkwardly -- neither for children nor cool young adults -- it's very sweet, very nice and just the thing for a girlie matinée with mum and nan.
60
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
The problem confronting writer Richard Maltby Jr. and director Chris Noonan is that Potter lived a fairly uneventful life once you remove her success as an author.
60
Variety
Robert Koehler
Renee Zellweger, in another Blighty role, struggles to make Beatrix credible.
50
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
By most accounts, Potter was a serious workaholic monomaniacally devoted to the purity of her vision. Undaunted, Noonan and Maltby are determined to squeeze her life into a run-of-the-mill romance in which love heals all wounds.
50
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
The movie is at once a flagrant piece of kitsch and an unexpectedly affecting story about an individual overcoming personal tragedy and brutally restrictive circumstances by talent and force of will.
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
"Potter" periodically brings Zellweger's charming drawings to life in elegantly animated sequences that are as delightful and lyrical as the rest of the film is stilted and clumsy.
50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The immediate problem with making a movie based on Potter's life is that it doesn't seem to have been very interesting.
50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
This attractive, superficial stab at biography, with Renée Zellweger in the title role, is more concerned with a lonely woman's quest for acceptance and love than with an author's worldly achievements.
50
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
This much sweetness and light in a movie is all very well. But there's a reason that recipes for cake and cookies call for a pinch of salt. In Miss Potter, there is only a grain or two -- not enough to dilute the sugary overload. The film is the cinematic equivalent of a delicate English tea cake whose substance is buried under too many layers of icing.
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The twee romance was too much for me, though the movie's first half follows in fascinating detail the innovations Warne introduced to popularize illustrated picture books for children.
50
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Zellweger is certainly likable as Beatrix, but as an upper-class English lady of a century ago, she enunciates her words as if sucking a lemon -- you almost start to wonder if you've stumbled into a satire of "Masterpiece Theatre."
50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Zellweger dusts off her Bridget Jones accent - and a constellation of annoying vocal and facial tics - for Miss Potter, an unrelentingly mediocre, TV-movieish biopic of beloved children's author Beatrix Potter.
50
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
Miss Potter is, in the end, a confection, a trip through the imagination on gossamer wings. Enchanting, perhaps, but a long, long way from meaningful.
30
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Miss Potter is a grave disappointment, because it never listens out for that note. It is a soft, woolly film about a smart, unsentimental woman who did constant battle with her frustrations.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes
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