Miss Potter

A week ago I totally lambasted the movie Becoming Jane. This week I watched Miss Potter and surprised myself, by really liking it. Now I am going to compare it to Miss Potter and Becoming Jane and try to figure out why I liked one and not the other. I have spent the last couple of days contemplating the difference between the two films and have come up with several similarities instead. Both are about British women authors. Predictably, both are stifled by the environment in which they live. Also, these women are misunderstood as artists, in other words put down by the patriarchy. The final commonality is that both films are Hollywood's clumsy attempt to fictionalize these women's romantic lives.

But the difference which tipped one film over to the like category was I am so unfamiliar with Beatrix Potter that she could have been Harry Potter's aunt for all I knew. I found the frumpy Renee and nerdy Ewan charming. The story unfolded with a clueless me enjoying the slow pace of the narrative as I happily knitted along. Where Hathway's Jane was perky, Renee's Miss Potter was feisty and persevered. She was convincing as an artist first and a woman second. Also Miss Potter had something Miss Austen did not, money. It is amazing what financially independence does for a woman with some serious spunk. And my final recommendation is the scenery, the views of the lake country are awesome. I wept with longing to go there after seeing this film. My final analysis is I liked it and at the end did not feel as if I had been pricked to death with a thousand quills.

Oh joy, spellcheck has returned to my blog dashboard. Life is good.