Saw this last night – one of those odd default selections that I end up at with a movie going pal, where one or the other of us had already seen each of the other movies we might otherwise have agreed on. In this case – I loooooooooove Ewan McGregor, and the one-two punch of Renee Zellwegger-Emily Watson was sufficient enticement for my friend.
It’s interesting seeing a movie that you have zero preconceptions of – I had seen a trailer a month or so ago, I think, but hadn’t read any reviews or heard any buzz, and since I knew absolutely nothing about Beatrix Potter – those books weren’t part of my childhood library (neither of my parents was a particularly sentimental sort, thank god) – I was totally tabula rasa on it.
I did enjoy it. It is a gorgeous movie from start to finish. Renee Zellwegger twinkles like she’s freaking Shirley Temple, but it suited the part so I found her marginally less annoying than usual. Ewan McGregor was deliciously Ewan McGregor-like, and it was visually yummy.
My question is, though – who is the intended audience here? Who caused this movie to get made? The director is Chris Noonan, who directed Babe. (The screenwriter was Richard Maltby Jr., a name I recognize though I have no idea why. [His father, Sr., is apparently a bandleader/arranger, so it seems unlikely I would recognize his name either.] This isn’t central to my point, whatever my point is, but it’s bothering me.) RZ was apparently an executive producer, so she helped get it made, at whatever level – but why? Again, who is the intended audience? Families? It’s rated PG, apparently for some brief “language” – I don’t recall what said language might have been, and I’m a little surprised that it’s not rated G. When we walked out, I said “Well, that was charming.” “Sweet,” agreed my friend. And it was both charming and sweet – but where is the audience for charming, sweet films, these day? My friend suggested the art-house crowd – the audience at the 5:15 PM Saturday show was mostly 30s to 50s folks, no kids – and not a very crowded theater. (Unlike the crowd for Pan’s Labyrinth, playing at the same time, which had more tattoos and much longer hair, and definitely skewed a couple decades younger.)
Anyone else planning to see this? If so, why? If not, why not?