It is to the BBC's shame that they have buried or lost this excellent film, and have NEVER released it to home video. It is a masterful treatment of the life of an extraordinary woman, anchored by a great performance from Penelope Wilton.
This film is far superior to the quaint (that is the nicest word I can use) work which stars Renee Zellweger. I am too big a fan of Beatrix Potter to completely trash that film, but I take umbrage with the ridiculous way they made her look, and how they glossed over her parents behavior, which was in fact strict even by Victorian standards.
Beatrix Potter was not a flibbertigibbet who baby-talked to her drawings, she was a SCIENTIST, for God's sake, a mycologist who developed a theory regarding lichen that was decades ahead of its time!
THIS film, with the wonderful and under-appreciated Penelope Wilton, makes clear Potter's sufferings and restrictions, and her great talents and achievements: a great watercolorist, artist, scientist, naturalist, writer, creator of a secret code that was unbroken until the 1950s, land developer and preservationist, environmentalist...I can't even go on writing this list because I get all weepy-peepy thinking of what a great, generous spirit she was. Not only did she help save the Lake District from becoming a car park or a strip mall, but her "little books" have touched the hearts and minds of millions, perhaps billions of children and adults ALL OVER THE WORLD, for generations. She changed the world, quite literally, with her actions. You understand that from seeing this film; you do not from seeing the lackluster presentation starring Ms. Zellweger.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, BBC?! DIG THIS OUT AND PUT IT ON DVD! YOU'LL MAKE MONEY!
THE TALE OF BEATRIX POTTER is based on the book by Margaret Lane, a very good, straightforward biography, which has here been well dramatized by John Hawkesworth, who brought us UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, and THE DUCHESS OF DUKE STREET (shows he was familiar with the era!). He became infatuated with Potter because of her marvelous watercolor technique, being himself a watercolorist and student of Picasso. He knows the details here, for set dressing and costume, language and manners; when young Beatrix mentions that her father takes photos for Mr. Millais, it is John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter; Canon Rawnsley, the enthusiastic Victorian country preservationist is fleshed out in limited screen time.
Next to Wilton, perhaps the most important actor in the film is the narrator, the late, great, Sir Michael Hordern, whose voice is the perfect framing device for this "Tale." He is well known to fans of British film, from such works as A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, SCROOGE (A Christmas CAROL), Zeffirelli's TAMING OF THE SHREW, LOVEJOY, and as the narrator in Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON. After watching THE TALE OF BEATRIX POTTER, I sometimes like to watch my copy of Hordern as King Lear, from the the BBC Shakespeare Plays produced in the 80s, to see Penelope Wilton as Regan opposite his Lear. They are so good!
In conclusion, if you know anyone who owns a copy of this film beg them to watch it with you or loan it to you, or if you're ambitious try writing the BBC and DEMANDING that they release a pack of lawyers to hunt down and issue this lost treasure on DVD, so that more people can see this wonderful rendering of the life of a great modern artist and benefactress of the people of Britain and lovers of the natural world.
