MISS POTTER (2006) *1/2 I'm open to the possibility that Reneé Zellweger did a good job in her portrayal. She's certainly credible as someone frumpy given to bouts of proper and righteous indignation, in the most understated manner of course. On the other hand I'm only slightly less open to the possibility that the portrayal is downright lousy. The frozen looks and pouts certainly seem appropriate enough (even amazing, in an understated way) for the character, just that we've seen Reneé do them other places as well. Surely there aren't a bunch of women wandering the world doing like that! I think not, but perhaps Beatrix Potter did. If it was cute, it'd be too cute. Here's what I do know: I like Beatrix Potter's books and I like their pictures. Not as much as a lot of people do, maybe, probably, but I like them all the same. After watching this film, however, I believe it likely that I would have found Miss Potter to be a quite nearly insufferable bore, in fact there's not a single character in the film that I don't feel sorry for. And no, I don't believe that's the point. The point, I believe, is supposed to be that wonderfully shared point between her tragedy and courage, a point somewhat undercut by the "and she lived happily ever after" typed-in conclusion. Maybe it says something good and general about artists-all exploding with various forms of creativity to combat reality or at least make it tolerable-but it's really not a good enough point to make me sit through all this . Ah she drew pretty bunnies and battled real estate agents. Yay. To me that's not necessarily a film.
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