User reviews

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

It must be quite frustrating for somebody who invested so much art and cinema know-how into making this film, and I suspect holds a lot of passion and tenderness for the heroes and for their times to read such feedback. I cannot however hide the facts. I liked a lot of things in Jane Campion's last film. Almost each scene is a visual masterpiece in setting, in colors, in placement of the actors, in the angles of the camera. It's a beauty to watch. But one does not come to the movies as he comes to a museum, and even for a visit in a museum two hours of continuous beauty without a break are tiring. The actors are well chosen, they are fresh faces and yet beautiful (Abbie Cornish) and expressive (Ben Whishaw' John Keats), and the film also brings the most adorable red-haired kid actor I have ever seen (the name is Edie Martin). Characters develop, and people speak, and fall in love, and love falls apart, and life falls apart, and there is a lot of poetry in all this, loudly read poetry, but then one does not come to the movies as he comes to a poetry reading. Some action is needed, some suspense is deserved - and this is exactly what 'Bright Star' is lacking in my opinion. We know everything that can and will happen in the film from the start, and the only unknown the film can offer is how fast or how slow the 119 minutes will go. Well, they were quite long for me by the end of the film.

Jane Campion is back to the period movies genre which made her most famous with 'The Piano'. In-between she made a couple of films in other genres ('Holy Smoke', 'In the Cut') which I liked more than the average critic and IMDb viewers opinion. I looked that the situation is reversed with 'Bright Star'.

When a director handles with English writers' biographies, it is easy to fall into the clichè, when one deals with the biography of a romantic English poet, it could be still easier to fall into the manneristic-romantic, and the risk of disappointment is always lurking. Although I have a strong feeling for this kind of movies, in a way that whenever a shot on some English countryside appears, I could lose my sense of reality, I can objectively say that the fore-mentioned risk is totally and thankfully absent in "Bright Star", which on the contrary stands out for its sober and delicate handling of the short life of John Keats and of his deep love for Fanny Brown. It's through Fanny's eyes we get to know Keats' inner world and poetry, the verbal beauty of his poems, full of pathos, inner longing for life and death, passionate, whereas their love story remains almost platonic, fixed on a perfect level, where nothing can contaminate their deep communion. And still Jane Campion has the merit not to heat up their story, and to depict subtle, almost evanescent moments of their encounters. Very intense interpretations are offered by the two leading actors, but I would say that every character has a precise and significant meaning inside the movie. Easily to be perceived as a slow picture, Jane Campion gets to convey through a movie, which requires motion in itself, the slowness required by poetry. Poetry , writing, love require time, patience, and silence. The silent moments between Keats and Fanny are as intense and evocative as when they recite poetry, even the discrete, silent presence of Fanny's brother makes a sense. Wonderful, to say the least, the shots with Fanny lying on a lavender field, and the one with butterflies inside her room: truly ravishing.

Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion, was unfortunately a bit of a let down for me. I was expecting a slow moving, historical movie about an English poet and his untimely death but I hoped that the story would be more riveting, more moving. I thought The Piano by Campion was a much stronger film and am a bit disappointed by her latest drama.

The film is based on the romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' death from tuberculosis at age 25. Abbie Cornish is excellent as Fanny, making us feel her profound love and terrible ensuing sadness which know no bounds. Ben Whishaw, a relatively unknown actor, is also superb, perfectly embodying the physically frail, emotionally fragile, wondrous poet that was John Keats.

There is much witty humor between Fanny and John's friend and fellow poet, Charles Brown, another excellent portrayal. He derides her constantly, making fun of her penchant for fashion and sewing and of her feigned interest (according to him) in poetry. He considers her a flirt and nothing more and tries to keep her as far away from John as possible, telling her they need time for their "musing" and must not be disturbed. To which she replies "Is that what us common people call thinking?".

Their love story is tragic- Fanny and John cannot marry because John does not have any income but they fall madly in love nonetheless. Fanny is his life, his inspiration and his hope during his illness. It is very sad that Keats dies almost unrecognized, poor and indebted, knowing that he then went on to become one of the most beloved and celebrated of Romantic poets.

Fanny lives with her family at home and since it is impossible for her to get more involved with John I found it hard to grasp the depth of their passion to the extent that Campion wants us to feel it. The first love they are exploring is beautiful and pure, but also immature at times.

There are undeniably beautiful excerpts in the exchanges between Fanny and John, such as this one, my favorite: "I almost wish we were butterflies, and lived but three summer days. Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." Fanny goes on to collect live butterflies in her room, which flutter about but end up littering the floor with their dead corpses, perhaps a symbol of this impossible love. Or "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness." During the ending credits, "Ode to a Nightingale" is read and makes one watch them till the very last one scrolls by.

The costumes are lovely; the film is definitely beautiful, well directed and wonderfully acted. However, how to put this in the most mild, most polite, English way possible: Fabio and I were both, at times, slightly, just a little bit, only a touch, bored and were expecting a teeny, weeny bit more.

My rating: 6 Fabio's: 6 Total score: 12 For more reviews please visit and become a follower at: http://paulinasmovies.blogspot.com

With such high hopes for a film, a letdown is always lurking the depths of your mind, but in this case, Campion far exceeded my exceptions. Never could I have predicted the deep, meticulously crafted scenes, led so strongly by Abbie Cornish playing Fanny. The heartwrenching emotion in this movie was unlike any other; there has never been a more real portrayal of the most simplistic yet most common emotions that rule the heart. Campion went far beyond the usual "I am deeply in love; Now I am sad" and truly captured human idiosyncrasy as she delved into the illogical, irrational minds of two young and suddenly in love individuals. At times, it was almost too much to bear due to how intensely palpable the sadness was. To some, certain scenes or moments may have seemed a little longer than usual, but completely necessary is the silence, just as much as the dialogue. This film perfectly embodied how a simple, real, profound story should be told.

If the above were not enough to drive this movie on, the aesthetics were nothing short of spectacular. Each stitch in Fanny's sewing was as beautiful as each scene in a field of lavender or room flooded with butterflies. The magnificent settings, costumes, and natural sunshine pouring into a perfectly decorated room felt not contrived, but simply like a very real dream. As the curtains in Fanny's room got caught in the breeze, it was as if you felt it cooling you down ever so slightly as her content emotion overtook your mind.

Ben Whishaw, too, was superb: perfectly embodying the fragile, wondrous poet that was John Keats, so full of tender emotion. Fanny's younger sister was another beautiful element of this film and really stole the show in her own right with her hilarious and endearing perception of life in general. Each character and each line spoken brought something so special to the story. As much witty humor as there was aching sorrow, this movie is not one to be missed.

John Keats (Ben Whishaw) is a struggling poet who rents some rooms with another writer, Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider) in the Hampstead Hills section of London. Next door is a beautiful young adult lady, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), her mother and her younger siblings, boy and girl. Fanny excels at sewing and embroidery, designing her own costumes but she has little appreciation for fine writing. Mr. Brown is an obnoxious, quixotic man who sometimes makes "passes" at Fanny, much to her disgust. But, John is another matter. Despite her failures at understanding his talent, she is drawn to his sensitive, kind nature. Alas, however, there is little hope for any attachments, for Fanny's family is on the wealthier side and her mother will not approve of an engagement to a penniless man. As Keats struggles to make a name for himself that might improve his chances, the two young lovers continue a tentative, chaste relationship. Will they be able to marry? This is a lovely story with many strong elements. One of the strongest is the script, for Jane Campion's screenplay is touching and elegantly worded. Fine, too, are the performances of the cast, for Whishaw, Cornish, and especially Schneider, an American, shine brightly, as do all of the lesser players. But, the costumes are alternately hideous and charming and the direction is flat and tedious, at times. Most importantly, the absence of a musical score lessens the film's overall impact, although some will dispute this. It is obvious that Campion, who does include singers and dancing music, when appropriate, was emphasizing the dialogue and felt any background music would interfere with the power of the tale itself. Nevertheless, this viewer feels that scores can add greatly to any film's success. Where would the new Pride and Prejudice or Life is Beautiful be, for example, without their sweeping and arresting musical compositions? Therefore, if you love romance or period pieces, do not skip this one, for it does have its merits. But, one can not help but feel that Bright Star would have shone far more powerfully with the additions of some apt melodies and a sharper, better-paced direction.

I just had the pleasure of seeing Bright Star tonight. I was hoping it would be as good as the trailer, and it was. The trailer is not misleading in this sense but a pretty good representation of the movie.

Most of the negative reviews I've read for this have something to do with how the film is "little" or "slow." Rarely, they comment that it's "melodramatic." Which it's NOT by any means. It is not mawkishly sentimental at all. It's not epic, it is small in a way, and there's never any seizing moment of action. That doesn't make it boring; it's engaging throughout.

This is different from any period film I've ever seen, or really, imagined. It's not like typical period pieces in trying to wow you with its aesthetic recreation of the time, it's not so much about the visual splendor, though it looks very lovely and is thoroughly convincing as a representation of that period. It's visually quite different from other period pieces, it has a more realistic and kind of earthy look rather than pastel-colored and with a glow around everything. There are slums and less-than-palatial places. This isn't Pride and Prejudice. Neither does it have sort of a broad, sweeping narrative. At heart it's a deep love story about famed poet John Keats and his love and muse, Franny Brawne, whose relationship was cut short by a tragic death. It delves deeply into the small details of their courtship, and is pretty involved psychologically.

These people are portrayed realistically. Even the more minor characters, they all seem to be real people, with actual personalities, rather than caricatures or types of stuffy Regency people who are preoccupied with propriety and good marriage matches. Fanny's mother is nice, the main issue with her marrying Keats is that he literally can't support her, and the people they know aren't mindlessly concerned about it. They actually have FUN and do more interesting things than stand at ballroom dances and sit at dinner. Who would have thought people in a Regency period movie could actually climb trees, walk in the mud, or do quirky, whimsical things? Their ease and naturalness and relative candor in moving around, interacting with, and talking to each other was refreshing and definitely different from the idea you generally get. And this is the first period piece I've ever, ever seen where anyone has actually picked up and held their pet cat and treated it like you would your pet. You can actually hear it purring, it's a real part of their surroundings. I liked that cat, it was cute.

The dialogue was superb. It wasn't this sloppy, general, or comical/absurd stuff. It was precise, clear, charged with personality, and often beautiful. When you hear the conversations between Fanny and John, it's brilliant, real, and a pleasure. I have never seen such intelligence, subtlety, or elegance in a movie in this way. To hear Fanny respond to something John said, even just a word, as if she were actually thinking about it, as would happen in real life, as if she were an intelligent, feeling, witty person, was so nice. And so DIFFERENT. It's a little hard to explain if you haven't seen it. Suffice it to say, the dialogue is delicate and nuanced. They are articulate but not pretentious, they are sensitive, individual people - not unreal types who don't pick up on details. And it being about Keats, the characters have a lot of literary intelligence. You will enjoy the poetry in the movie.

The acting was great. Keats - I would probably fall in love with him, too. He seems like such a sensitive, romantic, and intelligent guy. Ben Whishaw was perfect for him. And Abbie Cornish as Fanny is wonderful - while not extravagantly gorgeous exactly, her face has such clear features that she has an extraordinary appeal. She is a very striking character, and deeply feeling about Keats. You get a real sense of love, real responses to grief instead of just a pretty swoon. It was a real romance - their tender kiss was beautiful, the things they said to each other, and the things they felt.

This movie is one of those rare films that are almost perfect to me. That doesn't make it my favorite movie, but it means I didn't find much wrong with it. The emotion isn't overwhelming, it's not exactly visceral, but it's moving and penetrating, it has its own style. It's NOT sappy or conventional. The extreme intelligence, realism, and emotional depth of this movie truly set it apart from all others. I heard a review say something like about how it's just about "old British speech and mannerisms," which couldn't be farther from the truth. It is NOT driven by quaintness or generic period speech like other period films. The dialogue is not stiff, pretentious, or artificial, though it's accurate. Sweet, moving, and intelligent, Bright Star has rare depth. It's definitely like no other movie. You should go see it if you think you'd be into it at all, by any stretch. You might not like it - it is rather "slow," but very interesting, at least for me - but it would be a thick or insensitive person indeed who couldn't appreciate it in some way. It's like how Keats described Fanny - "the brightest, most delicate thing."

My favorite quotes are:

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness."

"I almost wish we were butterflies, and lived but three summer days. Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."

There are many others, much of Keats' letters to Fanny is so beautiful, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. These are two that appear in the trailer.

I'd be surprised anyone would wander into "Bright Star" accidentally, so if you purchased a ticket to see something about one of the Romantic Poets, you'll get your money's worth.

As Campion's career has matured her edge (some would say "feminist" edge) has become more tempered. In the case of "Bright Star" it's nearly absent. The heroine here is all frills and cleverness turned out well by Abbie Cornish. One of literary history's more tarnished characters, she's simply a modern girl by today's standards. Her transformation through loving one of the Romantic's doesn't get her very far. She decides to read some books...well, at least she says she wants to to read them, but whether she does more than memorize some of her lover's poetry, the film doesn't address.

The world here is so small that only once do we get mention of the scandal the relationship created. Her mother mentions Fanny has become the subject of a lot of gossip, but we never see who's saying what.

Instead the film focuses solely on the relationship between Fanny Brawne and John Keats with some heavy foreshadowing of the illness that befell him and the relationship. And the only sharp edge here is directed towards Keats' friend, Charles Armitrage Brown. I'm not sure it's a fair depiction, but it adds some leavening to all the dreamy imagery.

And it's beautifully filmed with breathtaking formal compositions, appropriate for a film about Keats. But it's also given little more weight than a lot of very ordinary stories of young love, which is probably the most shocking thing about the film since its made by a director known for creating complex stories of feminine struggle.

Ben Whitshaw as Keats acquits himself here after his performance in "Brideshead Revisited" (no small feat). And the entire cast is very watchable. However, I had time to study the set decor, color combinations and construction of the gauzy costumes and thought it would be better titled "Martha Stewart's Bright Star" (and actually, that's a compliment).

This is a classic case of "The Emperors New Clothes" - the hype makes everyone think it should be good, but if you look closely, there's not much there. The cast has the unenviable task of fighting a very poorly constructed script, and they do an enviable job. The performances, however, are one of the few things going for this film.

The script feels like a first draft, and comes off like a checklist of Keat's life. There is no dramatic arc. A good script will have elements established early on that pay off later in the script, but this has none of that. Anything that is introduced is dealt with immediately, and then you move on to the next item, so there is no sense of structure, dramatic tension or story arc. It literally feels like a checklist. The dialogue alternates between clumsy and awful, and the reading of the poetry always seems artificial and overwrought. I also wonder if a lot of footage ended up on the cutting room floor, as there are huge leaps in logic and there is little emotional continuity. There is no sense of the character's relationships to each other and I did not believe that there was any spark of true love between the two main protagonists! The film kept trying to tell you they were in love, but it just wasn't actually there (despite strong performances).

The costumes and sets are wonderful, but the camera work and lighting is dodgy. The film has numerous soft shots and strange use of hand-held, where the camera seems to accidentally move and bump with no sense of intent. The framing is often downright awkward and strange, and aside from a number of scattered "beauty shots", the cinematography is pretty poor.

This was quite a disappointing film, despite the hype. I feel like I am the little girl in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emporers New Clothes" who says, "But, he's not wearing anything!"

I saw this film tonight, and in my eyes, it is a perfect film. Beautifully acted by all involved, (several times during the film I found myself thinking 'Abby Cornish is amazing!", despite not being a huge fan before), and stunningly shot, it contains some of the most beautifully cinematic scenes i have ever seen committed to film. Campion does a wonderful job of communicating Fanny' emotional state through the composition, particularly in one scene where the wind is blowing the curtain in her bedroom. The light and colour are fresh and gorgeous and the costumes and design add to the overall piece without being distracting, which is just what you want from a period piece.

But in the end, it is above all a wonderful story, well told. A deeply romantic tale, the story of Fanny and Keats could easily have become a mawkish, overly sentimental piece. But through her wonderfully naturalistic dialogue, her use of humour and light touch, and her restrained story telling (she never lets a scene go on one line too long) Jane Campion has created a heart wrenching film which I cannot fault. The characters are real and fully rounded, you feel the joys and the pain with them, and where I think she really succeeds is by making their love affair extraordinary and yet at the same time deeply ordinary. It stirred up my own personal experiences of love and loss and you would have to have a heart of stone not to shed a tear at the end. Lovely lovely film, and what cinema should be all about.

Although his poetry was little appreciated at the time, John Keats is now considered to be one of the supreme Romantic poets of the nineteenth century. The line from his poem Ode on a Grecian Urn-- "beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" is one of the most quoted passages in the English language and no student can escape high school without encountering his exquisite Ode to a Nightingale. One of only a small number of films that have dealt with the lives of poets, Bright Star, Jane Campion's first film since 2003, revolves around the final years of John Keats (Ben Whishaw) who died of tuberculosis at the age of 25 and his love affair with eighteen-year-old seamstress Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish).

Set in 1818 in Hempstead Village in North London, the twenty-three year old Keats and his friend and writing partner Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider) live next door to Fanny, her widowed mother (Kerry Fox), younger brother Samuel (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and adorable sister Toots (Edie Martin) who always accompanies Fanny on her walks. Fanny is a dressmaker who makes her own clothes and is respected for her talent as a fashion designer. She is also bright and personable, never lacking for an escort at the local dances. Jealous of Fanny's growing friendship with the poet, the abrasive Brown tries to keep her away so that his friend can concentrate on his writing but she handles him with considerable wit and their repartee is one of the highlights of the film.

Drawn closer to Keats when his brother Tom takes ill with tuberculosis, Fanny is more than eager to understand Keats' poetry but finds it a strain. She asks for lessons and John is willing to comply but tells her that appreciation of poetry must come from the heart. Their relationship grows but suffers as well because of the poet's lack of material success which he is constantly bemoaning and because Fanny is afraid to be too aggressive, fearful of the whispering of neighbors. When John leaves town, Fanny waits by the door each day for a letter as her relationship with the young poet has become the most important thing in her life.

When Keats becomes ill with the same illness that claimed his mother and brother, the lovers are continually being brought together and then torn apart and an immense barrier grows between them. Though older than the character by ten years, Cornish does a good job of portraying one of Campion's more strong-willed and determined women. Whishaw's performance, on the other hand, never comes alive and never conveys the type of deeply sensitive character normally associated with a poet.

While some of Keats' more well-known poems are read aloud, there is little insight into the creative process or what makes him what he is as a creative artist. Though Bright Star is handled with delicacy and restraint, the film lacks inspiration and a story that could have been truly sublime is merely full of pathos. I'm afraid that instead of feeling moved to go out and read more Keats poetry, by the end of Bright Star, "my heart ached and a drowsy numbness pained. My sense as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the drains"

If you're going to do a film on Keats at least make it historically accurate. Campion has failed to even make it an interesting film through her changes of historical fact. It's dull, slow and lacking any dramatic drive. If you love meditation, take a rug to the cinema. You'll have have a great time relaxing. if you love cinema, don't go! It is so slow, I was able to go get more popcorn and not miss anything. scene after scene is of two lovers getting together, not getting together, trying to get together, Keats about to die. It's so lacking in any cinematic understanding that its truly incredulous how this script got through preproduction, unless Campion has no one near her who dares to tell her what a mess the script was in. Most distressing however are the deviations she has made from the truth. Go research the true nature of the relationship. Would Campion appreciate a movie about her in years to come which portrayed her as inaccurately as she portrays Keats and his life? I don't think so.

"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.

Greetings again from the darkness. From writer/director Jane Campion (The Piano), this is beautiful and touching story of unrequited love between the incredible poet John Keats and designer/seamstress Fanny Brawne.

Ben Whishaw (Perfume) does a fine job capturing the frailty, sensitivity and many moods of the poet, and give us a peek at his thoughts regarding his own death. The only real glimpses we get into Keats' writing process are his scenes with Paul Schneider (as Mr. Brown). Schneider's character is overly protective of Keats the genius and Keats the man ... almost to the point of obsession.

The real Bright Star of the film is Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth, A Good Year) as Fanny Brawne. She brings much depth to character and her emotions caused me to well up a couple of times (not a common experience for me). Star-crossed lovers seems so cliché, but certainly fits this story.

While I would have preferred more insight into the Keats genius, this is really a story of love and emotions. So we make do with the voice overs and bits of Keats poetry that Campion tosses in.

Many would say that Mr. John Keats is the greatest poet of his 19th century, and it is maybe hard to disagree. He also had a love story suited for romantic norms, as well as a death. His definition of absorbing poetry is famous. The reader is not supposed to swim from shore to shore. He ought to remain in the water and feel the mystery without coming to learn it.

But Jane Campion really takes us from shore to shore and although the plot often is inter-foiled with the most beautiful excerpts from Keats' writings, you anyway have the feeling that so much more could have been made out of this poetry material.

A movie which doesn't really dare.

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.

Each scene, every word uttered by the characters was so beautifully and often wittily crafted that I couldn't help but wish I lived in such a lush world, full of idealism and love of literature, not to mention people who cared about one another with such kindness and unabashed concern. Many of the scenes evoked the sixteenth century Dutch masters, whom Jane Campion may have used to set an authentic tone for her masterpiece. John Keats, the most intensely romantic of the Romantic poets (although Shelley and Lord Byron did their best) could not have received a fairer treatment, plus he was superbly acted by Ben Whislaw; I fell in love with the entire cast. This film lives up to its potential, and if you know anything about the life of Keats, you realize that it is a Titanic sort of plot, because the ship must go down. Yet my sadness was only that I have to live in the current world so dominated by name brands and nonsense rather than the fine stitchery and wit of Fanny Brawne. Drag your husband, significant other and everyone you know to see this film!! I've seen it twice!!

I would have given this a 4/10 score except, the more I think about it the less there is to say in commendation of it. The principle problem is that Campion has chosen to write the script herself with only the aid of Andrew Motion. No wonder this is so off target. If you are at all interested in history, or God forbid, Keats himself, stay well away. It is a truly appalling representation of a real person's life and work. It gives no sense of the deprivations suffered by Keats. You'd think he was a spoilt brat pretending to live the life of an occasional letter writer, in a well lit, airy rural setting, with Brawne depicted like the 21st Century prick-tease that chimes more with modern day sentimentality. Costumes interesting. Casting poor. Script Godawful. Cinematography odd. Deserving of oblivion.

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."

Campion's film was so restrained and so remote that I was unable to care much for anyone except the brother who died. And why did she put so much camera focus on the children, while giving them nothing to do, nothing to say, and no real vital presence in the story line? There's Thomas Sangster, all grown up, justifiably famous, skilled as an actor, and so underutilized he might have been drapery.

*sigh*

I've been reading generalized complaints on the discussion board that men tend not to like movies like this, and that their harsh ratings will cause the overall score to go down, whilst women apparently unilaterally love this film. So, a disclaimer: I am female. I'm not overly keen on "action/adventure" films or cheap smack-down comedies. I like intelligent movies, and I don't mind slow-moving ones. Campion's "The Piano" was excellent. No, it was not the pace of "Bright Star" that I objected to, but its lack of emotional involvement, its weirdly inattentive hyper-attention to period detail (Fanny's hair for example), and its elision of what surely must have been important plot elements. In all, I found Fanny's sparring with Mr. Browne far more interesting than her mooning over Mr. Keats.

Pretty to look at, this film, but not worth paying attention to.

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.