SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kim Westgarth This is an awful movie. Truly badly done. The accents are horrific and the scenery is stock shots. Getty images probably made a fortune off this one. The terminology is all wrong. The moment I saw the actual scenery I knew it was filmed in BC. You would think that Canadian actors could pull off a credible British accent. Poppy Montgomery shocks me as she is an Aussie. Surely she could at least fake a British accent. This was SUCH a disappointment. I'll bet J.K. Rowling cringed when this is brought up. No wonder its UNauthorized. Phew, what a stinker.

neptunegalaxy I loved Poppy Montgomery acting, but I think they got J.K's personality all wrong. Any fan of J.K.Rowling that ever read some of her interviews, watch documentaries, maybe read a biography or at least bothered to know more about her besides the single-penniless-mother-writer slogan that came attached to her name would realize that she is not quiet like that.Sure, they got her hair right, the sets, the atmosphere was great, but regarding other things (her personality, her reaction to things MOSTLY) I believe they just came up with. Like, they would look into a certain situation that we know for a fact that happen and just wonder what she would have done, instead of what she did, and by doing that they changed her personality completely. Its entertaining, but its not biographical.For example, she wasn't at all somebody that would go around screaming I WANT TO BE A WRITER for everyone everywhere, she said many times she never felt like she could tell someone that. I don't remember much about the movie but I remember that at one point she screams with one of her teachers for some random reason... Every fan knows J.K.Rowling was an observer person, quiet as a kid and melancholic as a teenager, listening to The Smiths, always with her head in books, an eccentric person, with hysterical laughs and fun but also very introspective, had a serious depression after she came back from Portugal, etcetera. Its part of the common knowledge that fans have of her, and their J.K.Rowling is not like that at all.

molly-cutpurse Reviews can be considered an interesting exercise for the ego. After all, what are we criticising? The film, or our reaction to it? How is it possible to be objective? Honesty first: I attempted to read, The Philosopher's Stone when it was released, but gave up after fifty pages. This is not to say it was poorly written, just that, at the time, I was not eleven. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the films and the story arc. Admiration and respect has to be given to anybody who has written seven novels. Much has been written about how she plagiarized, or a more pleasant word might be, poached, elements from other writers, but I am not concerned by these irrelevant rumours. What is important is she has brought happiness to millions, if not billions, of people. How many critics can die with that achievement on their lips? I'm also not concerned about the accuracy of this film. As far as I understand it, the major elements are there; the rise of a desperately poor mother (with circumstances whom most of us can sympathise) with a dream, to unparalleled success. Is that not enough? Is that not the quiddity of what this film is about? Therefore, you can tell that I enjoyed the snapshot of this woman's life. It was competently made and acted. Nothing jarred. However, what was important, was that it moved me. And at the end, to joyful tears. Isn't that the highest recommendation? Only one point deducted for not taking her story up to the present.

GD Cugham This made for television feature caught and held the attention one New Year afternoon for all the wrong reasons. A dramatisation of how Joanne Rowling discovered the idea for Harry Potter then became JK and rose to international fame is filmed like a particularly cheap perfume ad. The director's apparent obsession with flashes of cleavage aside - at times you think you are watching the feature through dirty-old-man-on-tube Cam - the main actor has been cast for her resemblance to Rowling and little else. The director again seems to be at fault for not allowing his star to re-dub her lines but this is perhaps a trait of this rushed-to-shop production. The whole early section, juggling a parental death with Rowling's teaching experience in Portugal, affair with a Latin lover and subsequent pregnancy, makes the Mediterranean hi jinx of 'Mamma Mia' look like Chekov. When Rowling returns to the UK with her daughter the real comedy ensues as the script hangs around the rumours and misdirection Rowling fed press junkets regarding her formative time writing Potter while placing the action in an Edinburgh that makes Diagon Alley look grittily realistic. Canadianisms pervade the whole telling of this section. A single mother doesn't receive "assistance" in Scotland as the film insists, but 'benefits". Rowling's experience as a teacher in Leith Academy is grimly unresearched, with what looks like a Kindergarten in Hobbiton being her workplace. What in real Edinburgh is called "interval" or 'playtime' is erroneously referred to as "recess' by the Mcgonagle-like Headmistress.Even by TV movie standards this is cynical stuff. The creative process is explored in clichéd montage, at once displaying Rowling as a lucky, remotely eloquent Bimbo - her child and relationship with her is laughably never believable - while never exploring the fact that Rowling lightly thieved from Dahl, Tolkein, Rattigan and Lewis in her development of the bespectacled Potter.There are some that may say this insanely chocolate-box representation of Rowling's life and Britain is all she deserves for a biopic. Her vision of Hogwarts and intrinsic social classes in her novels is adolescent in its reflection of UK life and also posits an ideal school system that is rare in the UK and patrician and exclusive where it does exist.That aside, this is camp Lambrini party viewing, provoking unintended laughs and hilarity, especially if you live in the UK. Watchable in that vein!