Bright Star

Through brilliant, stunning visuals and intelligent, witty dialogue, Jane Campion's Bright Star celebrates the rapture of passionate love. Using many of the Romantic John Keats' own words--captured for posterity in his poems and love letters to Fanny Brawne, his 'sweet Girl'--Campion has weaved together one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen.

Rich 19th-century fabrics and breathtaking English scenery make Bright Star a sensuous pleasure to experience. But these visuals merely reflect the beauty within, the soul of this film: the love affair of Miss Brawne and Mister Keats.

Brawne is passionate about and proud of her fashionable and daring needlework, as is Keats his aspiring albeit more fine-spun poetry, and both share an ardent love of life and a longing for someone with whom to experience it completely. Theirs is the inspiring true story of the rare uniting of equals--of two strong, independent, and intelligent individuals with unique talents and dreams yet deeply matching values and desires.

The emotional, intellectual, and subtly sensual affair between Brawne and Keats is captured wonderfully in Bright Star, owing in part to the portrayal and backdrop of those closest to the lovers in their own lives, such as Keats' coarse but caring friend Charles Brown and Brawne's warm mother and endearing siblings. The obtrusively vulgar Brown serves in stark contrast to the gentlemanly Keats, whose integrity and will Brown deeply admires but cannot quite live up to in his own life, while Brawne's loving family--woven seamlessly into the storyline through their presence in scenes of playfully benevolent games, strolls, and dinner-parties-- serves as foil to the equally loving yet singularly feisty Brawne. Through the meaningful and often-tender dialogue and interactions between these vivid characters, Bright Star is able to match beauty of setting with that of soul, a rare feat in a film...as it is in life.

Now Bright Star has been attacked as sentimental by the modern, cynical skeptic, and if it were the hackneyed story of a princess and a pauper mindlessly frolicking to their "fairytale" ending, his criticism might merit a modicum of respect. But Bright Star is not a fairytale in that empty sense; for the fact is Keats died at the age of 25, and he and Brawne were anything but mindless. So unhappily for the cynic, his venom is ineffectual against this film; for in Bright Star, his normally insidious strain of attack finds its antidote: reality. Bright Star is a *true story* depicting the love affair of two exceptional souls who lived a life (however brief for Keats) of happiness *in this world*. In today's angst-ridden, often gloomy atmosphere of humility and despair--where so many either consciously diffuse or unwittingly (and tragically) breathe in the modern liberal claim of man's depravity (itself merely a mutation of the ancient Christian notion of Original Sin)--the little-known Bright Star shines through in rebellion with pride and exaltation, demanding its viewers resurrect the self-esteem and aspiration they once had as children, and should never have let die as adults.

Although Bright Star is deeply uplifting and truly benevolent, one must be prepared to leave its resplendent world tinged with a real sadness. But this sadness does not--it cannot-- abide if one recalls Keats' own poetic words to Brawne (from an early love letter), which encapsulate the film's essence: passionate love for this wondrous world and one's 'Bright Star' in it...

"...I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days--three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."

When watching Jane Campion's affectionate account of the final months of John Keats's brief life I could not but ponder on the precariousness of human existence even at such relatively short time ago as the early years of the nineteenth century. Ahead were those advances in medical science that certainly have enabled this octogenarian to watch several hundred wonderful films rather than a small handful. It is the ephemeral nature of experience that tugs at the heartstrings, a romance with everything going for it, cut short because a cure now available simply was not there. "Bright Star" lovingly conveys the "carpe diem" of the all too brief relationship of the young poet with his very near neighbour, Fanny Brawne. Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish instinctively express the emotions of an affair they know to be all too short in a way that reminds that great romantic cinema is far from dead. As if this were not enough, Campion's work is terrific on period detail. A shot very near the beginning depicting a Hampstead village landscape with white sheets of washing flapping in the foreground is breathtakingly beautiful. And this just one of many. There are moments of exquisite tenderness such as the scene where Keats comments on the rosebud complexion of Toots, Fanny's much younger sister. We are never far from the poetry itself which is oft-quoted even to the extent of providing a background to the final credits thus rendering the usual rushed exit from the half lit "dream palace" all but impossible. There is a moment shortly towards the end when Fanny, hearing of Keats's death collapses in a paroxysm of grief. As moving as similar moments in the work of such masters as Satyajit Ray and Hou Hsiao-Hsien, this places Jane Campion's film on the highest level.

I got the DVD of Bright Star as a get well present while recovering in hospital from a major spinal operation recently. Looking at the cover, it looked like my kind of movie, a romance and a period drama. Last Sunday, I watched it and was very impressed overall. It is a beautiful movie and competently directed and acted, but two things stop it from shining more than it could have done.

One is some of the dialogue. Not all mind, most of it is wonderfully poetic and moving, but then there is some of the more abstract language that feels more stilted and not as feasible to understand. My main problem is the pace, which throughout is rather slow making one or two scenes in the middle act a tad dull.

However, as a depiction of the joy of first love and the heart break that succeeds it, Bright Star is very effective. The final twenty minutes are heart-breaking, and the mood of the film compliments Keat's sensuous style beautifully. Jane Campion directs very competently, with each scene and season moving pretty much seamlessly to the next.

Bright Star has a beautiful, moving story, beautifully told and tells the story of Keats, his love and his beautiful poetry lovingly. The film looks exquisite, with lovely photography and authentic costumes and the painterly, watercolour-like scenery is spellbinding. The music adds to the poignancy, the background scoring is effective without overpowering and I liked the use of the Mozart piece if not the arrangement and how it was performed, some of the singing lacked support and the piece works much more as a chamber work.

The acting is fine and appropriately understated. Ben Whishaw is dashing and compellingly misty-eyed, while Paul Schneider adds a slight touch of menace and perhaps even realism to the picture. It was Abbie Cornish though who gave the best performance, one minute she is appropriately stern, another minute she is very poignant.

All in all, a lovely movie, could have been more, but one movie I would see again willingly. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox

"Bright Star" is not only one of the best films of the year, but also Jane Campion's return to top form. Possibly the most acclaimed female director of her time, thanks to early strong and praised works such as "Sweetie" (1989), "An Angel At My Table" (1990) and particularly "The Piano" (1993), the truth is that Campion hasn't had a real critical or commercial success since... "The Piano". "The Portrait of a Lady" (1996), her adaptation of the Henry James novel, had a stellar cast, but was almost universally ignored; "Holy Smoke!" (1999), with Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel, had its moments, but failed to impress anybody; and "In the Cut" (2003) was easily her worst film (but far from a disaster). The fact that Campion managed to remain such a respected name all these years even though not being the most prolific or successful filmmaker proves how influential and fascinating she is. She became some sort of figure for all the major female filmmakers from the past two decades and developed a very personal style marked by strong female sexuality (often, repressed), told with visual lyricism. She may be considered a feminist, but not the obviously preachy type, because her work flows like good cinema, and not as a heavy-handed gender discussion.

"Bright Star" is a tragic love story, beautifully directed, acted, photographed and written. Is it a revolutionary or innovative film? No. But the power of its lyricism and unabridged romanticism is infinitely touching. Anyone familiar with 19th century poet John Keats knows that he died of tuberculosis at 25 (and this is no major spoiler, since it's mentioned in every synopsis of the film), so we know the love birds are not going to live happily ever after. Campion centers on the three-year romance between Keats (a discreet and charming Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, magnificent); their passion and the issues that prevented them from being together. Whishaw fits Keats' shoes perfectly, even if he might seem a little too low key at times. Paul Schneider ("All the Real Girls"), who's becoming one of the great American character actors, plays the villain as Charles Armitage Brown, Keats' friend who will do whatever he can to keep him away from Fanny. Kerry Fox ("Shallow Grave", "Intimacy"), unforgettable as Janet Frame in Campion's "An Angel At My Table", plays Mrs. Brawne, and Edie Martin is simply adorable as Fanny's little sister Toots. But this is Abbie Cornish's show all the way. This 27 year-old Australian first impressed me opposite Heath Ledger in 2006's "Candy", and here she shows her full potential. Her Fanny is simply incandescent - a terrific performance that could culminate in Oscar glory. For all romantics and admirers of good cinema, "Bright Star" is what Keats himself would call 'a thing of beauty... a joy forever' - intoxicatingly beautiful. 10/10.

Keats's romance with Fanny Brawne and final days are brought to lovely life in Jane Campion's new film, Bright Star. He had TB, though it's never named. When he had become very ill, they sent him to Rome. How foolish! Its climate isn't healthy, though it might have seemed so compared to Hampstead. The house where Keats lived in Hampstead for two years and was in love with Fanny Brawne and wrote some of his has just been restored.

Campion's film may not be a deep investigation of poetical genius, but it's delicate and alive and infinitely touching. There's a delightful litte rosy-cheeked girl, and good use is made of cats. The handsome Regency house was then divided into two, one side occupied by Keats and his landlord and possessive companion Charles Brown, the other by a family called Brawne. He fell in love with Fanny Brawne, and she with him. She is creative in her own way, a brilliant seamstress and designer of clothing who was inventive with fabrics. She didn't know much about poetry but to go by the film, she crammed the classics to be able to talk to Keats and read all his poems and memorized many passages. They recite them back and forth to each other, which may be artificial, but you don't mind, because the poetry is their love, it bloomed through their love and expresses it. Until he began coughing blood and ceased to write because he was suddenly too ill, Keats wrote some of his best work in Hampstead, in love with Fanny Brwwne.

They express their love in long sweet kisses, and walking hand in hand. This too is artificial but a fitting symbolic expression of the ecstasy and swoons of romantic poetry.

Sometimes the final credits define the experience of a film and of its audience. You have to love a film over whose final credits the wispy, winsome Whishaw is heard softly reading the whole of the Ode to a Nightingale, right to the end, and you have to respect an audience in an American cineplex when many of its members sit still to hear Keats's masterpiece down to the final words, "Was it a vision, or a waking dream?/ Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep?" Can you imagine having known a person with such extravagant gifts? Campion doesn't get too much in the way of our own imagining. She just lets it happen, lets the cats wander in and out, and thus captures the sine curve of romantic experience, its extremes of joy and despair that are so poignantly focused in the life of this penniless English boy who died at twenty-five, thinking himself a failure, and left behind some of the finest poetry in the language.

Abbie Cornish plays Fanny, Ben Wishaw John Keats, Paul Schneider plays Charles Brown. The little rosy-cheeked sister, Margaret "Toots" Brawne, is played by Edie Martin. Brown is the villain of the piece, because he jealously guards Keants from Fanny, whom he thinks is a silly girl who only sews and flirts. He's getting in the way of romantic love! And Schneider can't help but seem obtrusive here. Brown redeems himself later when, having gotten the sweet Irish servant girl Abigail (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) with child, he does the right thing and marries her.

Fanny's mother says she can't marry Keats, because he has no money, but he proposes, and she accepts, and when the liebestod begins, there's no way of denying his happiness or Fanny's, or the sadness and devotion that made her wear the gold engagement band for the rest of her life. Campion's film offers no profound insights into the poetic process. But how can it? Though Fanny asks Keats to give her "lessons" in poetry, its appreciation, like its creation, must be instinctive and cannot be explained, particularly not the ethereal romantic kind. Wishaw's delicate and enigmatic quality is a satisfying image to hang our fantasies on.