In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…Well two actually!
“Maudie”-Based on a true story
A film by Asling Walsh
Staring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke
and...
“Miss Potter”
Written by Richard Maltby Jr.
Directed by Chris Noonan
Staring Renee Zellwegger and Ewan MacGregor
What are the chances that out of a thousand movies to choose from one might inadvertently pick two with amazingly parallel story lines? How is this for coincidence? Both about female artists. Both were real people and their stories were real (with a sprinkling of Hollywood sparkle, of course!). Both lived in times and places where the expression of their artistic bent was not considered particularly acceptable. Both stories incorporate a love interest. And…to top it off I enjoyed both films! Amen!
I swear I had no idea that what these stories would be about. I picked them off the shelf at the Hobe Sound Library (Where all books must be mysteries and Large Type) after only a cursory examination of the cast. Hawke, Zellwegger and MacGregor being the bait that caught me, though I only half care for any of them. It was several days before I was bored enough to watch the first one a biographical fantasy about Beatrix Potter. She lived out her early years in a straight-laced Victorian home with her over bearing mother and an endearing , father. She drew and painted little bunny rabbits and ducks while cloistered in her upstairs rooms with no prospect expect to end up in an arranged marriage with some lout picked out by her mother. Grim. But Beatrix is nothing if not determined to be something special.
The movie got off slowly and when the first of many fantastical animations of Beatrix talking to her cartoon creations came up on the screen Elisabeth (my bride) whipped out her cell phone and reverted to Face Book. I stuck with the film. As always I will not give the entire plot away but I will say she breaks free of her mother and her art goes mainstream. She publishes books for children that become wildly popular throughout the world. She becomes wealthy and proceeds to buy a farm and then another adjacent property and another… Her love of Nature abounds and upon her death she has contributed not only lovely children’s books but four thousand acres to the Nature Conservancy.
It was the day before the DVDs were due back at the library that I got ‘round to watching “Maudie”. I didn’t put together the interesting parallels between Maud and Beatrix until well into the story but then it hit me. She is also an artist diddling away in her sister’s house in Nova Scotia. Her sister is every bit the biddy that Beatrix’s mom was and her brother is a creep who wants nothing to do with Sis probably because Maud is different. She seems a little slow and she is deformed and has difficulty walking. Stuck in this restrictive environment, bursting with latent talent, she searches for an outlet. She decides to try housekeeping for a reclusive bachelor/fisherman(Ethan Hawke). Again, I won’t go too deeply into the story but she too has success marketing her primitive paintings. Over time her relationship with Hawke develops and she becomes a sensation in Canada and the U.S. because of her art.
“Maudie” has a sexual element to the story that “Miss Potter” does not. In fact the latter is marketed for ages 6 through 9 while the former is definitely more adult. But both handle the love relationship topic beautifully. Both capture the essence of artistic drive and creation. Both tell a good story about how the artist comes to grips with the restrictions of the society they live in. Both were worth the watch.
I give them both three Cheap Beers.
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