I was surfing about around midnight for something to watch and found Miss Potter just starting on Encore West. I had DVR'd this a couple of weeks ago and watched it just last week, but it was so sweet I let it run again. I really want to see this widescreen, as the beauty of the Lake Country (and Scotland and the Isle of Man) is really lost in fullscreen. In story tone it's very like 84 Charing Cross Road or The Railway Children or even Anne of Green Gables; nothing spectacular happens, it's just a slice of life.

I went looking for the reviews of this film and found some folks running down Renee Zellweger something terrible. I was a bit puzzled why they didn't do this with an English actress in the role, but I didn't think she was as bad as everyone made out. What did annoy me was people talking about how "unattractive" she was made up as (they did seem to take pains to paint Potter as being a rather plain woman), and others pointing out that "the real Beatrix Potter was no raving beauty, either." I've read at least one bio of Beatrix Potter, with photos included, ones that are also on the web—she looked like a real, live, normal woman, not those overly-made up, mannequin-faced actresses on television and in the movies that are supposed to resemble real human beings and who have become our models for "attractiveness." These women always remind me of the line in Eight Cousins where Rose describes Annabel Bliss as "so like a wax doll she longed to give her a pinch and see if she would squeak." Hear, hear. Bless "Miss Potter" and other "just plain folks"!

Labels: movies

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:09:00 AM

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