This 'n That Thursdays: Two Excellent Movies About Two Remarkable Women

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's first Lake District home
(from National Trust).

While staying with my sister in New York, I watched a lot of movies with her as she recuperated from her surgeries.  One of her friends from church offered to check movies out of the local library for us.  We requested one that we both wanted to see, and this friend also included another she thought we might like.  Both movies feature remarkable women, and my sister and I ended up enjoying both movies so much we decided we need to own them!  Below is a description of each movie:

From Cover Browser

1) "Miss Potter" (2006) - this lovely fictionalized biography stars Renée Zellweger as Beatrix Potter, the beloved English author and illustrator of the popular Peter Rabbit children's books.  The film begins just as Miss Potter is about to submit her first book for publication.  The book is accepted but only one of the publishers, Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor), believes that it will be a success.  Norman becomes her editor and the two grow closer.  He asks Beatrix to marry him, but her parents are opposed.  They agree to postpone their marriage for a few months, only to have their engagement end tragically.  Miss Potter grieves for her fiancé and decides she cannot live in her parent's house any longer.  She has made enough money from the sale of her books to buy a farm in the Lake District, where she becomes actively involved in preserving the area from overdevelopment.  If you are an Anglophile and/or have any interest in Beatrix Potter and her children's books, then this move is a must-see for you, and even if none of these topics interest you I would still recommend it!

From Amazon

2) "Temple Grandin" (2010) - this film is a biopic starring Claire Danes as the title character, an autistic woman who overcomes great odds to become a respected animal scientist as well as an autism advocate.  Temple Grandin was born into a wealthy Boston family, and despite recommendations that she be institutionalized, her mother (portrayed in the movie by Julia Ormond) sought out specialists in an attempt to help her daughter become better socialized.  On a visit to a family ranch in Arizona, a young Temple becomes fascinated by the use of a squeeze chute to calm cattle while being handled.  She invents a variation of this device which she calls a "hug box" for herself when she realizes that it can help calm her anxieties as well.  Thanks to dedicated family and teachers as well as her own determination, Grandin is able to graduate from universities with degrees in psychology and animal science.  She develops a structure for dipping cattle humanely, which paves the way for her acceptance into the male-dominated field of animal science.  At the end of the movie Temple Grandin attends a conference on autism, a condition for which little was known at the time, and realizes that she is uniquely qualified to educate others on this condition from first-hand experience, leading to her advocacy for early autism intervention.

I have a degree in animal behavior and was somewhat familiar with Temple Grandin (who is currently on the faculty in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University), but I had no idea this movie existed before my sister's friend brought it to our attention.  The film is so well done that I would urge anyone to watch it, whether you have an interest in animal science and/or autism or not.

Dr. Temple Grandin (from Maker Bolder)

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I am in the midst of major one-woman property cleanup campaign after the mess Hurricane Irma left, so I will not be watching movies for a while.  However, when I get a chance I am going to reward my efforts with a major Amazon order, and these two movies will definitely be included!