Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
It’s hard to make a film about the creative process, or about the people who created some of the most enduring works of popular culture. It’s not often that your real life is as compelling or original as the fictions these people are known for. Biopics can be really, really formulaic, and it takes a really happy convergence of inspiration and casting to make it pay off. Is MISS POTTER going to be one of the ones that transcends and really delivers the goods? Here’s one opinion of the print as it exists right now...
Yo Harry,
I’m a film student in NYC, haven't wrote in before, but I've been a aicn reader since I was 16 so figured i'd shout out. I happened to get offered a free super-duper early test screening of some rather blatant Oscar bait, the Renée Zellweger/ Ewan McGregor/Emily Watson starring MISS POTTER. IMDB has the release date at December 29. Aka: Gimme’ dat Statue!
The film isn’t about Harry Potter’s hot cousin, but rather Beatrix (not Kiddo) Potter, the most best-selling children’s author in history. She wrote and illustrated the Peter Rabbit books.
Beatrix (Zellweger) is a mid 30’s soon to be published author, trapped under her parent’s rule. Though she’s desperate to bounce and be independent, her whacked out parents won’t let her leave unless she gets hitched.
Can’t say I’m a huge Zellweger fan, but I give her credit. She’s pretty solid as usual and has no problem carrying the film. McGregor plays her publisher/love interest, Norman. He turns in a decent, believable performance but nothing great. Watson plays his sister, Millie and Beatrix’s best friend and confidant, and manages to steal every scene she’s in, regardless of how little she has to work with character wise.
Maybe it was just me, but watching this film, it felt like this was a bit of a re-hash of Finding Neverland. It’s a biopic taking place in the 1800’s England about a struggling creative individual who writes whimsical bedtime stories that our protagonist sees come to life within their life. In Finding Neverland, he sees people with hooks. Here, we got her seeing rabbits pulling buggies.
Oh and nobody seems to ever think anything of Beatrix having conversations and arguments with her drawings. She’s clearly delusional, but it’s a bigger deal that she wants to be independent.
Yeah, I know it sounds like it totally blew. But this film isn’t terrible by any means. The pacing is excellent. Can’t say it dragged at all. The audience enjoyed it. It had a few funny moments. Pretty light fare overall. And that, to me, was precisely the problem. Besides Beatrix wanting to get married against the will of her parents, there isn’t that much drama or tension whatsoever.
Now coming standard in all biopics, we get the usual dose of childhood flashbacks. But it struck me odd that in her flashbacks, Beatrix has a little brother that we never see either grown up or mentioned throughout the entire rest of the film outside those flashbacks. Though it seemed pretty polished, they told us this was a rough cut. If the studio has half a brain, they’d fix that up.
The ending felt pretty rushed. Without spoiling any plot points, let me just say we get hit with the classic incomplete-feeling biopic closing, tied up in the bow of a closing paragraph covering everything the film never gets too. It would’ve been more interesting if it did.
If you decide to put this up, call me BEAN DIP. Peace.
Hmmmm... decidedly mixed. Even a little rough on the movie. I guess we’ll see for ourselves in a few months. Thanks, BEAN DIP.
"Moriarty" out.
