Miss Potter

Chris Noonan's (Babe) pleasant but tepid biopic of the Victorian-era author of the Peter Rabbit stories stars Renée Zellweger (resurrecting her Bridget Jones accent) in the title role as an imaginative storyteller who also draws animals in pretty pastels to accompany her tales. When one of Beatrix Potter's peculiar beast fables is finally accepted by a publishing house, the owners fob the unpromising project off on their brother Norman (Ewan McGregor), a young man whose determination to make the book a success results—to everyone's astonishment—in an instant bestseller and signals the beginning of a veddy British romance, one marked by much dithering on the part of Beatrix and clumsy courtship on the part of Norman. Happily, Norman's proto-feminist sister (Emily Watson) takes a shine to Beatrix, encouraging her to say yes when he finally proposes. A likable if rather bland biographical profile (the only effort to spruce it up lies in animated sequences in which the author's characters interact with her), Miss Potter avoids complete sentimentality, but despite a vaguely feminist stance and a narrative turn in favor of environmental consciousness towards the close (Potter eventually moved to a rural area where her fortune allowed her to become an early land preservationist), the film ends up like its subject's books—pretty, sweet, cute, but also rather thin. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Chris Noonan, “A Real Life Fairy Tale” making-of featurette (22 min.), “The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter” featurette (20 min.), the music video “When You Taught Me How to Dance” performed by Katie Melua, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a so-so biopic.] (F. Swietek)