Possible Spoilers: "Magic Beyond Words" tells the story of J.k. Rowling's life leading to the Harry Potter novels. The overall presentation is nice, giving us some insight on Rowling's life. However, there are many inaccuracies and clichés that makes some of the research questionable. The inaccuracies include incorrect portrayals of many of the settings in the movie like Wyedean School and London itself, some cultural mistakes like having sweet trolleys on English trains, and many more. The clichés include over dramatic portrayals of some life events like her time with her first husband, and some usual clichés like when she says "Do you think we'll ever see Harry Potter in that window display? Not bloody likely". On the other hand, it Poppy Montgomery gives a very charming performance as J.k. Rowling and the film has a rather nice atmosphere when giving telling it's story. In conclusion, it feels like a quick scroll through Wikipedia, giving the main build of Rowling's life but having some frustrating inaccuracies and leaving some crucial parts out like Rowing's dealings with depression. If you want to learn a bit about Rowling's life and can deal with some inaccuracies and clichés then watch this at your own risk, if you don't like inaccuracies or clichés then maybe keep on looking.

I can only concur with the comments made previously about the glaring misrepresentations of British life and culture in this film. I appreciate that biopics are an interpretation of a person's life, but while that person is still alive some efforts should at least be made to show their nation's culture with some semblance of authenticity. In the scene in secondary school Jo calls her teacher 'professor'. I am only 2 years younger than Jo Rowling and teachers were never called that, they were either 'sir' or 'miss' or called by their full surname with appropriate title, e.g. 'Dr/Mr/Mrs/Ms So-and-so'. The benefits office (benefits, not 'assistance') in the film was unfeasibly clean and tidy, I was a single mother at about the same time and dole (benefits) offices were always filthy, depressing places devoid of hope, and littered with cigarette butts and stinking of smoke, BO and despair. And the benefits officers never dressed like the Queen as the one in this film did. And your benefits book came in the post, it was not just miraculously handed over to you (although I appreciate that this would be done in the film for efficiency of time). But the biggest and most epic of fails was the line uttered by Jo's father when she failed to get into Oxford University and he said it was because she went to a public school. That would be STATE school. A public school in the UK is a fee-paying independent school, over 50% of students at Oxford and Cambridge universities attended public school, they are considered the privileged elite, not what Jo's dad was referring to which is the free public- funded schools paid for by taxation which something like 93% of British children attend. Aside from all that, it was a dreadful film. All the foreshadowing was really obvious and patronising. If you're going to make a film about a living person pay more attention to the cultural specificities. I'd gladly be a consultant in these matters. Kate the celluloid pedant xx

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.

OK viewing for a damp winters day when there is nothing else on the box and your DVD player is on the blink. Research is laughable (if it was done at all) Knowing Tutshill, having attended Wyedean and having worked in Edinburgh, this film shows the typical sickly sweet idealistic old fashioned chocolate box view of "little old England" (but at least they recognised that Edinburgh is in Scotland). Maybe I'm being picky, but when making a biopic (authorised or otherwise) surely they should have a far better idea of the locations? It is 8-10 miles from Tutshill to the outer edges of the forest for a start. the uniforms for Wyedean are completely the wrong colours and the badge is a figment of the film makers imagination. All it would have taken was a quick search on Google ...... and don't even get me started on the buildings!!As has already been noted by another reviewer, the linguistic differences between us and our North American cousins are very apparent (although I do note that the lead is played by an Australian) the accents throughout are either the typically clipped accents favoured by North American movie makers and the Scottish accents are woefully inaccurate. The language used is about as inaccurate as you can get whilst still speaking English one example being assistance (benefits) i'm surprised they didn't talk about grade school, high school etc.