Miss Potter – the tale of Beatrix Potter was the most enchanting/traumatising of all!

Rene is cast as Miss Potter – I think the producers thought ‘hey everyone loves Bridget Jones and Rene was nominated for an Oscar for that, let’s cast her as Bridget Jones but…in the magical Victorian times!’ Rene, please do it, it’s the same part, just screw up your face repeatedly to broadcast notions of upper class sensibility!!’. And thus, René Zellwegararara was hired. And fuck, she really is bad in it. Beatrix is therefore Bridget Jones - single, quirky (far too quirky, but not Juno level quirky admittedly) and got a hint of creativity. Replace everything that is likeable about Bridget, put her in the early 20th century and have her imagining rabbits hopping about the place...who she talks to...and actually considers them to be friends. Her fucking friends. Seriously!
Ewan McGregor dons a twiddling moustache and has apparently graduated from the Hugh Grant School of bumbling acting. That or even Hugh Grant thought he was above this project. Hugh Grant!! The guy who did Two Weeks Notice!
The casting of both of them suggests that the producers were hoping to recreate the chemistry that the two shared in ‘Down with Love’ which captured the hearts of millions. Except, no, it didn’t because Down with Love fucking BOMBED at the box office. Also the two don’t share any chemistry. So, why team them up again? It’s not exactly Kate and Leo. (Speaking of, I cant wait for Revolutionary Road – look it up!)
Ewan is admittedly kind of sweet, however, I have to question that because why the hell is he so enchanted by Miss Potter? One scene she tells of a hilarious anecdote where she was drawing a bucket of swill without realising and he thinks it is the most hilarious thing he has ever heard. Actually, ENCHANTING. These two characters have obviously never even dated or even conversed with members of the opposite sex and are each other’s last resort. Except that Ewan is a bit too keen on his mother and Beatrix is probably off trying to shag a rabbit on those cold lonely nights in Upper Class land. Ewan realises that he can’t marry his mother and therefore pretends that Beatrix’s obviously mental instability and her compassion for drawing swill buckets is simply enchanting and captivating instead of dangerous and disturbed. Beatrix also pretends that Ewan hopefully has a penis somewhere and isn’t actually Norman Bates.

Emily Watson plays Norman’s sassy singleton sister – who raves about the joys of single life, insistently. I don’t think she talks about anything else. Perhaps this means she is secretly enraged no one fancies her and she is trying to justify that fact? Married life is full of the burdens of childbirth and domestic enslavement, whilst single life is about procreation, to which Miss Potter replies ‘Milly! You say OUTRAGEOUS things!’ this OUTRAGEOUS character of Milly though quickly goes back on her word when Beatrix wants to marry Ewan. Milly claims it was all ‘hogwash, what else is a single girl supposed to say?’ Great message for you girls!! You’re only kidding yourself if you don’t want a man!

I particularly enjoyed Ewan’s awkward proposal scene, where Miss Potter interrupts and asks him to sing her a song. Ewan nearly declines, but then remembers he was in Moulin Rouge and now has to sing on request. Thankfully, Rene doesn’t.
As all of this happens within half an hour, the film drags on to include Beatrix’s upper class parents being unhappy with extremely working class Ewan (did I miss something?) and send Beatrix to the Lake district so the filmmakers can get some nice pretty shots of the lakes to put in the trailer to transmit feelings of ENCHANTMENT.
Ewan sees Beatrix off at the station…in the rain…without his jacket. Rain + no jacket in those ‘crazy old English times’ is not good…especially when another character mentions it. Me thinks this might be important.

Beatrix meanwhile skips across the Lake District looking mad as usual and sees a man. Apparently he is meant to be the boy who appeared in a flashback earlier in the film. It’s amazing that they both recognise one another despite twenty years have passed since they have last seen each other and being played by different actors. Good to know that there is a back up romance in case anything goes wrong with Ewan.
When the REVELATION that something is wrong with Ewan happens, the camera is placed rather too dangerously far away from Beatrix and it is all but quiet. Cue Beatrix fainting and looking distressed. It appears that Ewan is so worried about what this awful film will do for his reputation and has killed himself off in the story.

Apart from the tragedy at the end this portrayal of Britain is so spine chilling - was everyone this happy and quaint and twee? it must...must have been written by an American...this representation did never exist!!!!

So yes, from that you may think oh quite sweet romance story, two socially inept people get together but then he dies, she learns to love life and buys a house in the Lake District. However, all of this is littered with ‘Beatrix. Cam’. We see through her eyes and in her eyes her drawings of animals (who are incidentally her ‘friends’) come to life and point, laugh and wiggle their arses. I think the filmmakers nicked that technique from the genuinely touching Finding Neverland, which focused upon J.M. Barrie’s vision of the world. That worked though as it was the moments in his life that inspired him to write Peter Pan. However, in Miss Potter, she has already written these books and characters at the beginning, thus, her visions hint more at schizophrenia or some other mental illness than inspiration. She is also meant to be ‘amazing’ and have wonderful imagination. The only story we hear is ‘The Rabbits Christmas Party’, which essentially boils down to:
Rabbits meet up at Christmas
They throw a ‘jolly party’.
Rabbits eat and drink a lot
Even though, admittedly, this is a corker of a story, Beatrix ‘does not know how the story will end’. How the FUCK is that a story? That’s simply a basic premise for an opening page in a book surely? She can’t even finish it off?? How about, ‘they then went home and hoped that Beatrix would leave rabbits the fuck alone’? The audience don’t think so though and clap and say how marvellous it is. Well I don’t think so!! I was a fan of Beatrix Potter as a child, but now when I hear the words…I think of Rene glaring at me seductively with her index finger to her mouth. Well I point my middle finger in her general direction i.e. the nearest mental health centre.

Highlight: Beatrix telling her coach driver to go faster...faster..(harder?)

Rating: So Bad it's Bad

What one should I do next? (if any?)
L.Brown Fox (do I put it here or will it automatically do it? Ohhh, I don’t know what I’m doing)