Miss Potter
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: December 29, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
In every way, Miss Potter is a very beautiful thing. Read full review
91
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
It's first-class entertainment for bookish lads and lasses of all ages - and for those who never have or never will crack a paperback's spine. And it might inspire today's nascent artists to open up their sketch-pads as well as their hearts and minds. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
In addition to being a beloved author and illustrator, Beatrix is also presented as an early feminist and environmentalist who took control of her literary empire and saved vast acres of luscious farmland from greedy developers, eventually bequeathing property to Britain's National Trust. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
With its lack of pretensions, Miss Potter is that rare breed of cinematic animal: a movie whose entire goal is to entertain and perhaps apply a gentle touch to the heart. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It is a lovely film for the holiday season, as well as afterward, and is reminiscent of "Finding Neverland," without the darker undercurrents. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
In many ways, a magical little movie in its own right, and a thoroughly pleasant experience. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Miss Potter, right to the end, is the definition of a "nice" movie, and that makes it a genuine oddball in a universe of increasingly distressed and uncivilized pop culture. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss/Richard Schickel
The director, Chris Noonan, doesn't play to our sentiments, he just lets them naturally evolve--even the animation of a few of her (Potter's) drawings doesn't feel especially forced. The result is an honorable and curiously winning film. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
A very gentle-spirited picture, but it's not a self-consciously precious one. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Endearing without being especially engaging. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A scenic, well-behaved account of Potter's life and times. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Maybe Miss Potter will be best appreciated on video when you will intuitively know when to turn it off. On the other hand, Potter's pastel illustrations, which often come to life to her and to the camera's eye, deserve the larger canvas. Tough call. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
At 92 minutes, the film has the economy of a Potter story, but not the shapeliness or the zip. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
With its tasteful palette and twee charm, Miss Potter is the china plate of movies, a Peter Rabbit collectible entirely suitable for mounting on the nursery wall. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The problem confronting writer Richard Maltby Jr. and director Chris Noonan is that Potter lived a fairly uneventful life once you remove her success as an author. Read full review
60
VarietyRobert Koehler
Renee Zellweger, in another Blighty role, struggles to make Beatrix credible. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Pitched awkwardly -- neither for children nor cool young adults -- it's very sweet, very nice and just the thing for a girlie matinée with mum and nan. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Miss Potter hardly deserves ridicule. It's sweet with lovely Lake District vistas and a heartfelt endorsement of land conservation. It will certainly play well with older audiences and the kind of adolescent girls who draw faces in their O's. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla Taylor
By most accounts, Potter was a serious workaholic monomaniacally devoted to the purity of her vision. Undaunted, Noonan and Maltby are determined to squeeze her life into a run-of-the-mill romance in which love heals all wounds. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The movie is at once a flagrant piece of kitsch and an unexpectedly affecting story about an individual overcoming personal tragedy and brutally restrictive circumstances by talent and force of will. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
"Potter" periodically brings Zellweger's charming drawings to life in elegantly animated sequences that are as delightful and lyrical as the rest of the film is stilted and clumsy. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This attractive, superficial stab at biography, with Renée Zellweger in the title role, is more concerned with a lonely woman's quest for acceptance and love than with an author's worldly achievements.
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
This much sweetness and light in a movie is all very well. But there's a reason that recipes for cake and cookies call for a pinch of salt. In Miss Potter, there is only a grain or two -- not enough to dilute the sugary overload. The film is the cinematic equivalent of a delicate English tea cake whose substance is buried under too many layers of icing. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The twee romance was too much for me, though the movie's first half follows in fascinating detail the innovations Warne introduced to popularize illustrated picture books for children. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Zellweger is certainly likable as Beatrix, but as an upper-class English lady of a century ago, she enunciates her words as if sucking a lemon -- you almost start to wonder if you've stumbled into a satire of "Masterpiece Theatre." Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Zellweger dusts off her Bridget Jones accent - and a constellation of annoying vocal and facial tics - for Miss Potter, an unrelentingly mediocre, TV-movieish biopic of beloved children's author Beatrix Potter. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The immediate problem with making a movie based on Potter's life is that it doesn't seem to have been very interesting. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
Miss Potter is, in the end, a confection, a trip through the imagination on gossamer wings. Enchanting, perhaps, but a long, long way from meaningful. Read full review
30
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Miss Potter is a grave disappointment, because it never listens out for that note. It is a soft, woolly film about a smart, unsentimental woman who did constant battle with her frustrations. Read full review
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