Miss Potter (film)

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Miss Potter

Directed by	Chris Noonan
Written by	Richard Maltby, Jr.
Starring	Renée Zellweger Ewan McGregor Bill Paterson Emily Watson
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) The Weinstein Company Momentum Pictures
Release date(s)	December 29, 2006 (limited)
Running time	92 min.
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Official website
IMDb profile

Miss Potter is a 2006 Chris Noonan film. It is a biopic of children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, and combines stories from her own life with animated sequences featuring characters from her stories, such as Peter Rabbit.

Scripted by Richard Maltby, Jr., the director of the Tony-winning Broadway revue, Fosse, the film stars Renée Zellweger in the title role; Ewan McGregor as her publisher and fiancé, Norman Warne; and Lloyd Owen as her husband William Heelis. Emily Watson also stars as Warne's sister, Millie.

It was filmed in Cecil Court, Covent Garden, the Isle of Man and the Lake District. Miss Potter was released on 29 December 2006 so that the film could compete for the 2007 Academy Awards. The film was intended to be released generally on 12 January 2007, however Variety.com reported that the Weinstein Company had decided to push a wider release date until after the Academy Awards on February 25, 2007.^[1] It was felt that this strategy would give the film a chance to shine in what was already a very crowded movie season. The date seemed to fluctuate a number of times, but the Weinstein Company website ultimately listed its release date as March 9.

The film received generally positive reviews^[2] and earned Zellweger her sixth Golden Globe nomination.

Early buzz was overall positive by those few who had been able to see the film during numerous sneak preview showings, but occasionally sprinkled with discussions regarding some of the historical inaccuracies in the film. There also have been both praise and criticism of the casting of this important figure in British literature with American actress Zellweger. These discussions are reminiscent of the initial uproar when Zellweger was cast in the British film role of Bridget Jones, which was developed into a sequel. Zellweger previously had co-starred with McGregor in the 2003 film Down with Love.

[edit] Historical inaccuracies

The film contains some historical inaccuracies about Potter's life. What follows is a list of accurate facts:

The Warne brothers finally decided to publish Peter Rabbit after Potter successfully had printed and sold several editions herself, and the story originally had been written for a little boy named Noel who was ill. Noel was a child of Potter's favorite governess with whom she remained friends.
The Tale of the Two Bad Mice was inspired by a dollhouse that Norman Warne built for one of his nieces.
Jemima Puddleduck was a real duck at Hilltop Farm that kept hiding her eggs, and that story was written after Warne's death.
Warne died of pernicious anemia^[3], not a cough.
William Heelis had not been a groundskeeper nor a childhood acquaintance of Potter's, and she was older than he.
The books are published out of order.
Beatrix Potter is shown at one point celebrating Christmas in a traditional fashion. As a Unitarian she would have been unlikely to do so.