Strange, isn't it? Each movie's life touches so many others. Without It's A Wonderful Life, NBC would have an awful programming hole. Finally, Hollywood has seen fit to make a sequel, and Miss Potter is every bit as touching and relevant as the 1946 Frank Capra classic.
Miss Potter fast forwards to the Bedford Falls of 1975, where Bea Potter (Renee Zellwegger), daughter of evil banker Old Man Potter and town strumpet Violet Bick, presides over her late parents' business empire. She sits around spinning her little webs thinking the whole world revolves around her and her money. She sorely needs somebody to point out that in the vast configuration of things she is nothing but a scurvy little spider.
That somebody turns out to be Tommy Bailey (Ewan McGregor), oldest son of the late George and Mary Bailey. Tommy shook the dust of that crummy little town off of his feet and set out to see the world. What he saw was a foxhole in a rice paddy in 'Nam.
Bitter and disillusioned, Tommy returns to Bedford Falls looking for a place of his own -- nothing fancy, just a couple of decent rooms and a bath. Although Miss Potter turns down his loan application, the sparks fly and the twosome almost make love in the vault before Tommy realizes his religious convictions prohibit pre-marital sex. He flees to the town bridge where he wishes that he had never been born again.
Of course there are angels and bells and everything else that you could want to find in a sequel this important. The whole film is pitch-perfect proof that it still is a wonderful life, a warm reminder that no man is a failure who has friends, and fresh product for some lucky network to exploit for the next fifty years.
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