Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Misses Potter and Pettigrew

On my last day at home in South Dakota, we have enjoyed a leisurely day, capped by the watching of two Netflicked movies: "Miss Potter" and "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day."

I had shuffled both of them to the top of my queue to bring on my trip because they both seemed... well... entertaining (as opposed to enlightening or thought-provoking). I thought the idea of them both being period pieces and at least mildly romantic would be nice. They both lived up to those expectations. And I further came to find that they both, at their cores, have a message of following your heart and living in the moment. Unfortunately, although they were both quite nice films, I have to admit that I came away liking one more than the other.

"Miss Potter," which stars Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter (the creator of Peter Rabbit and his friends), is a very nice bio-pic. It has some wonderful animations through which her characters interact with her--although I had really been expecting more, since many of the reviews mentioned "lush animations." I found myself enjoying the auxiliary characters almost more than Miss Potter, herself. And, now that I think of it, I liked them because of the actors (Emily Watson, Ewan MacGregor, and Lloyd Owen), and not for the roles they played. Which is too bad, because I did want to like the movie.

On the other hand, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" was quite wonderful. Frances McDormand plays Miss Pettigrew--a woman who loses her position with a nanny agency, so she insinuates herself into a position as "social secretary" for an American starlet living in London. The starlet (Amy Adams in a breathy, ditzy role) has a bit of a problem: she has three men who all want to marry her--each of which can help her career in his own way. This is where "Miss Pettigrew" pulls so quickly away from "Miss Potter." 

In "Miss Pettigrew," I found myself wanting to know more about all of these "extra" characters who filled her one day of living. Although I know the names of a few of the actors, I found myself talking about them by character names while the credits rolled. From the three suitors to the starlet's conniving "friends," they were all so well-drawn and multi-faceted that, at the end of the movie, I wanted to know more--to know what happened next to each of them, and whether they got what was coming to them (good or bad). 

Did they both live up to my requirements of being entertaining, mildly-romantic period pieces? Yes. Unfortunately, at the end of "Miss Potter," the audience is given a few lines to fill us in on the rest of her life, and yet I felt like I was missing out on something. "Miss Pettigrew," on the other hand, gives us only hints to what happens after the curtain falls, but leaves us ready to give our applause and exit the theater, thankful to have been along for the ride.

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