I have to admit my expectations of Miss Potter weren’t high- I’d seen Hollywood butcher the lives enough of my favourite female writers (Gwenyth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath? Seriously?) to become fairly jaded. However, the movie still frustrated me because it used a feminist slant for advertising:

“At a time when most women of her time aimed only to make a good marriage, Beatrix became an iconic figure, swimming quietly, but with great fortitude against the tide.”

Now leaving aside the assumption that all turn of the century women were dying to get married, this seems pretty enticing to me.

For those of you who haven’t seen it (spoilers ahead!) the plot of the movie is fairly predictable- girl grows up in a home where her brother is encouraged to develop his intellect and she isn’t, girl is always getting her dress dirty, girl grows up to be headstrong and single. Beatrix’s early life is spent drawing and painting animal subjects, whose Miss Potteranimation is one of the movies best features. It’s established that she’d rather marry for love than money, and wants to earn her own income. In the movie she tries to get her first Peter Rabbit book published and meets her future fiancé, Norman Warne, adorably acted by Ewan McGregor acting like Hugh Grant. They become flirty friends and Beatrix meets his sister, the headstrong suffragette-type Millie. Millie and Beatrix become quick friends exchanging quips to the like of “who needs marriage? All that diaper changing and catering to the needs of your husband” and “give me the single life any day”. I know there was at least one person in the audience thinking “hear hear!”

But the inevitable happens; Beatrix falls in love all of a sudden wants to get married. Her parents are all disapproving and it’s very dramatic, but the disappointing part takes place when Beatrix secretly asks Millie if she approves of her marrying her brother. These two intelligent characters rapidly become 13 and giggly, and Beatrix asks “but what about all of Millie’s “down with marriage” beliefs?” Millie responds something to the like of “what else is a lonely single woman supposed to say?” Now hold the boat here. While of course we expect Millie to support her friend and want her to be happy, one would expect her to inform Beatrix that all marriage doesn’t have to be oppressive and labour-laden. What we get instead is Millie refuting everything we’ve been lead to believe about her being happy and independent in her single life. For the second half of the movie no one is swimming with great fortitude against the tide, but instead splashing naively along with it. Now to be fair, after Warne dies the focus is on Beatrix’s conservation work and independent life in the Lake District. She does get married but there is no giggling or saccharine love scenes.

What is frustrating about this movie is its initial promotion of the independent, single women and then the subsequent trampling of aforementioned ideal with the intimation that deep down all women want is to be loved by a man and married. No suggestions of a marriage being between equal partners, or of being able to uphold a career and a relationship. It’s a life or marriage, and all women, even really talented creative women, in the end desire the later. I have the feeling Potter is rolling in her grave.