bright star movie review

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness: Keats and Fanny Brawne

Fanny Brawne (Annie Cornish) reads a poem by Keats.

John Keats wasn’t meekly posing as a Romantic poet. He was the real thing, and the last born of the group that also included Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley. He died at 25 and remains forever young.

The great and only love of his life was Fanny Brawne, the daughter of his landlady. He lived with his friend, Charles Brown, and she with her mother, sister and brother in the two halves of a Hampstead cottage so small, it gives meaning to the phrase “living in each other’s pockets.” Their love was grand and poetic and — apart from some sweet kisses — platonic, for he had neither the means nor the health to propose marriage, and they were not moved to violate the moral code of what was not yet quite the Victorian era.

Jane Campion’s beautiful, wistful film “Bright Star” shows them frozen in courtship, like the young man Keats wrote about in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: the youth who is immortalized forever in pursuit of a maid he is destined never to catch.

He could have been writing about himself and Fanny:

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

It is almost as if they were spiritually inflamed by their doomed love. She was not shy but she was proper, and he loved her, but perhaps he had some difficulty in thinking of her as physical. When his younger brother Tom died and his own health began to fail, he immortalized his loss of that which he had never possessed. (From his deathbed in Italy, however, he did indeed write his friend Brown that he wished he had “had her” when he had a chance.) Dr. Johnson observed to Mr. Boswell, “Marriage, sir, is a state with few pleasures. Chastity, with none.” Yet Keats and Fanny seemed quite pleased enough.

I have visited Keats House many times and I can tell you it is shocking small. The dividing wall between the two households was knocked out in the mid-1880s, but propriety must have erected a stouter wall. In “Bright Star,” John and Fanny court and flirt as if they live in neighboring counties. It’s to Campion’s credit that she doesn’t heat up the story or go for easy emotional payoffs, and we’re spared even the pathetic deathbed scene that another director might have felt necessary.

The key figure is Fanny, played by Abbie Cornish with effervescence. “I confess I do not find your poems easy,” she tells Keats ( Ben Whishaw ). But she studies them earnestly, with a touching faith that they must contain clues to the stirrings in her heart. He requires her as a muse. For a reader, he has the bearded, gruff Brown ( Paul Schneider ), possessive, demanding, a taskmaster. Brown is hostile to Fanny’s appeal to his friend and resents it when she interrupts them “working,” which seems to consist of him scowling morosely at a manuscript while Keats idly dreams. Brown is a poet himself, but to his credit, he recognizes the better craftsman and behaves like a coach or an agent.

There might be some question whether Brown felt sexual stirrings of his own involving Keats, but I think he is oblivious to such a possibility. He knows the real thing, he wonders if Keats would daydream his career away, as always at his back, he hears time’s winged chariot hurrying near. When Keats leaves for Italy, it is Brown who accompanies him — not Fanny, of course, who waits forlornly for the postman to approach down the little lane beneath the tree where Keats perhaps heard the nightingale sing. (The tree now growing on the spot is not the same one, but don’t tell everyone.)

What Campion does is seek visual beauty to match Keats’ verbal beauty. There is a shot here of Fanny in a meadow of blue flowers that is so enthralling it beggars description.

Hampstead in those days was a village on the slopes north of London, almost rural, where shepherds could graze their flocks on the public land of Hampstead Heath. Coleridge lived not far way in Highgate, and the two met during their rambles on the heath. To support oneself seems to have been relatively possible, despite Dickens’ portraits of poverty at the time. Mrs. Brawne ( Kerry Fox ) observes to her daughter that he has “no living and no income,” the volumes of verse brought in only a few pounds, but when it is time for Keats to live in Italy, he finds the means. It appears that an English gentleman could support himself on air and credit.

It is famously impossible for the act of writing to be made cinematic. How long can we watch someone staring at a blank sheet of paper? It is equally unenlightening to show the writer seeing something and dashing off to scribble down impassioned words while we hear him reading them in his mind. Campion knows all this, and knows, too, that without the poetry, John Keats is only a moonstruck young man. How she works in the words is one of the subtle beauties of the film. And over the end credits, Whishaw reads the ode, and you will want to stay.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Bright Star

• Thomas Sangster as Samuel
• Kerry Fox as Mrs. Brawne
• Paul Schneider as Mr. Brown
• Edie Martin as Toots
• Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne
• Ben Whishaw as John Keats

Written and directed by

• Jane Campion

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Bright star — film review.

A treat for romantics and those who take their poetry seriously, New Zealand director Jane Campion's gorgeously filmed Festival de Cannes Competition entry "Bright Star" may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along.

By Ray Bennett

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More Cannes reviews

CANNES — A treat for romantics and those who take their poetry seriously, New Zealand director Jane Campion’s gorgeously filmed Festival de Cannes Competition entry “Bright Star” may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along.

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Cynics need not apply and it’s doubtful that “Bright Star” will be the shining light at many suburban cineplexes, but festivals will eat it up, art house audiences will swoon and it will have a lucrative life on DVD and Blu-ray, not to mention the BBC and PBS.

The England depicted in the film is the one people are thinking of when they say they wish they were born during the time of the romantic poets. Only one scene in the picture shows the ugly underbelly of poverty in 1880s London, and for the rest it’s all picturesque houses and gorgeous gardens in Hampstead Village.

There, Fanny lives with her widowed mother, Mrs. Brawne (Kerry Fox), and her well-behaved younger siblings Samuel (Thomas Brodie Sangster) and Margaret, known as Toots, (Edie Martin).

Their place in society takes them to social events and balls where Fanny’s dance-card is always filled, although the glamorous Keats prefers not to dance. She has made a name, and money, for herself as a skilled maker of fashionable garments, although the best friend of the coveted Keats, a burly writer named Brown (Paul Schneider), dismisses her as “the very well-stitched Miss Brawne.”

Fastidious and proud, Fanny feuds with Brown, who is over-protective of his genius friend, but she sends Toots to buy a copy of the poet’s latest collection, as the child says, “to see if he’s an idiot or not.”

The English Whishaw, who was a sensation as Hamlet in Trevor Nunn’s Old Vic stage production in 2004, played the similarly doomed Sebastian Flyte in “Brideshead Revisited” last year but makes his Keats singularly memorable. Cornish has the acting skill to match her striking beauty and she makes the small loving gestures that the British might call soppy both real and touching. Among the pleasures of the film is listening to them both declaim Keats’ poetry.

The entire cast is good, with Schneider, who was among the exceptional ensemble in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” and Fox especially strong. Cinematographer Greig Fraser beautifully captures Janet Patterson’s sumptuous production and costume designs, as well as the lovely gardens and countryside. Mark Bradshaw’s elegant score is pleasingly delicate.

Festival de Cannes — Competition

Sales: Pathe Distribution Production companies: Pathe Productions, BBC Films, Screen Australia, New South Wales Film & TV Office, UKFC, Hopscotch International

Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox Screenwriter-director: Jane Campion Executive producers: Francois Ivernal, Cameron McCracken, Christine Langan, David M. Thompson Producers: Jan Chapman, Caroline Hewitt Director of photography: Greig Fraser Production, costume designer: Janet Patterson Music: Mark Bradshaw Editor: Alexandre de Franceschi

No rating, 120 minutes

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Summary London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, and outspoken student of fashion. This unlikely pair started at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. It was the illness of Keats' younger brother that drew them together. ... Read More

Directed By : Jane Campion

Written By : Jane Campion, Andrew Motion

Bright Star

Abbie Cornish

Fanny brawne, ben whishaw, paul schneider, mrs. brawne, edie martin, toots brawne, thomas brodie-sangster, claudie blakley, maria dilke, gerard monaco, charles dilke, antonia campbell-hughes, samuel roukin, amanda hale, reynolds sister, lucinda raikes, samuel barnett, jonathan aris, olly alexander, françois testory, dance master, theresa watson, vincent franklin, eileen davies, mrs. bentley, roger ashton-griffiths, critic reviews.

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Bright Star Reviews

Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw dazzle in Bright Star, Jane Campion’s sumptuous tale of a simple romance that inspired great art.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2024

Manages to bottle the fleeting feeling of spring bliss.

Full Review | May 20, 2022

Everything is simple and understated, allowing the big moments their space. ... [Whishaw's] line readings are disastrous. ... Cornish is a revelation[.]

Full Review | Nov 9, 2021

Jane Campion's "Bright Star" manages to accomplish quite a bit, not the least of which is a love story where the lovers not only rarely get any time alone together, but fall in love in front of the whole family.

Full Review | Oct 8, 2020

Bright Star is filled with such an enormity of love and feeling, it nearly takes your breath away. The film's rapturous images and Campion's vision make you long for a world as vivid and true as this one.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2020

The film succeeds in making the lustre of Keats' words come borne out of the inspiration he finds in his love for Fanny Brawn and the transcendent beauty of the natural world.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2019

The love story between John and Fanny fuels the narrative and draws in the viewer - we root for their happiness even though we know only heartbreak lies ahead.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2019

There are moments of great and sublime beauty at work here.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 5, 2019

Bright Star is a beautiful film, filled with the glories of nature and man that inspired Keats.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 5, 2018

The problem that the New Zealand director cannot overcome is that there is the lack of electricity between Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in the lead roles.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 4, 2018

Yes, it is a thing of beauty and, yes, things of beauty are joys for ever but we can also probably say this about them: they don't always add up to the most affecting movies.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

The film is mistaken to the point of perversity about the nature of imagination when it comes to a poet and especially to this poet.

Full Review | Aug 29, 2018

In a world where only Hollywood cinematic romance is acceptable, it is a risk that pays off.

Full Review | May 18, 2018

Campion manages to understand and present the essence of a passionate relationship, without becoming corny or old fashioned. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 16, 2018

Bright Star is a work of muted eroticism, and in its bare-bones approach, it's a story reminding us that love often grows without explosive fanfare.

Full Review | Feb 3, 2018

Every frame exudes a sweet, doomed innocence that makes you want to cry, then swoon, then cry again.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2018

Wonderful attention is paid to detail, including clothing, furniture and highly-stylized behavior. What is missing is emotion.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2018

It all feels quite lovely and seems an achievement unto itself, to be allowed to soak in all this calm and tenderness.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2017

Director Jane Campion's most enthralling film since The Piano.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2017

If the theme of Bright Star is the realization of oneself in natural emotion, the method is gorgeously unnatural.

Full Review | Jun 13, 2016

• Cast & crew

User reviews

Bright Star

A lovely movie, if not quite shining as brightly as it ought to have done.

• TheLittleSongbird
• Mar 30, 2011

beautiful cinema work cannot avoid this film slipping into boredom

• Oct 10, 2009

A delicate touch to depict the ravishing power of words and silence

• Jun 18, 2010

Needs, Needles

• Oct 27, 2009

Do not waste your time

• Nov 13, 2009

Disappointed and bored although the film is beautiful

• Jan 19, 2010

Beautiful in the rarest of ways

• clementinejames
• Sep 9, 2009
• Michael Fargo
• Sep 18, 2009

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

• trypanophobic34

Lovely period piece but, does not shine as brightly as one would expect

• Oct 14, 2009

Poorly constructed script with good performances

• Nov 6, 2009

A brighter word than Bright

• Sep 22, 2009

What could have been truly sublime is merely full of pathos.

• howard.schumann
• Sep 19, 2009

truly awful

• Dec 2, 2009

"Bright Star" is Jane Campion's least graphic film, but it's also one of her most passionate

• Benedict_Cumberbatch
• Oct 3, 2009

3 Long Saturdays

• Oct 8, 2009

Keats according to tradition

• Dec 28, 2009

Campion captures the sine curve of romantic experience

• Chris Knipp
• Sep 26, 2009

A Joy For 119 Minutes

• Jan 23, 2010

This film is a masterpiece.

• Oct 4, 2009
• PipAndSqueak
• Dec 5, 2009

Bright Star...beautiful

• Nov 8, 2009

Would I were stedfast as thou art

• JamesHitchcock
• Dec 19, 2011

Unexceptional

• catjoescreed
• Nov 15, 2009
• jandesimpson
• Feb 11, 2015

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Film Review: Bright Star – A Deeply Affecting Love Story

Bright star film review.

Bright Star is a film by Jane Campion (director of The Piano ) about the love story between Fanny Brawne and John Keats. The passionate letters that passed between them during his last few years are actually available still in several publications and biographies. It is a quiet, thoughtful and deeply affecting love story.

Fanny Brawne is a young woman with a fondness for wit and a talent for designing her own fashion. She meets a young, melancholy poet through their shared acquaintance, Mr. Brown. The man is John Keats. They strike up a friendship which quickly develops into love before anyone can stop it. Fanny becomes his muse. They cannot marry as Keats is penniless and those close to them attempt to keep them apart for their own good. Yet the young couple will not be denied and fall deeply in love. However, Keats becomes ill after suffering prolonged exposure to the elements. It may even be the same affliction that killed his brother.

Bright Star is a small, quiet film but is no less moving for that fact. Indeed, it is perhaps due to this that it feels more real than many other period dramas. The pace is quite slow and meditative which wasn’t a problem for me, but some may find it unappealing because of this. Slow does not, in this case, mean boring. Every moment is imbued with importance and there is a simple intensity of feeling to the entire production.

Bright Star is also quite beautiful. It was shot almost entirely on a single location outside of London. Most of the story takes place in a house deep in the countryside, surrounded by lush greenery and bluebell bedecked forest. The costumes are eye-catching, especially Fanny’s, which are unusual creations that she has made herself. Great attention is paid to the color palette used in each individual scene which makes it all very visually appealing.

Related Post |  Belle Film Review 

The love story is beautiful too and deeply poignant. Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish bring raw, emotional performances to the film that definitely enhance it. History has already sealed the fate of the lovers but you still desperately want them to find the happiness they so long for. It is an innocent, sweet old-fashioned love story that is still surprisingly free of cliche.

Bright Star is a tender, emotional journey about first love and heartbreak. It is also a celebration of John Keats who was, in my opinion, the greatest of the Romantic poets.

Content Note: There is no sex or nudity. A bloody shirt is seen briefly from a man with consumption. There is a single instance of profanity.

Photo Credit:Apparition / Warner Bros

OVERALL RATING

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”

ROMANCE RATING

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

I have loved none but you.”

ARE YOU A ROMANCE FAN? FOLLOW THE SILVER PETTICOAT REVIEW:

Elinor is a writer and semi-recent graduate of English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. She has been writing ever since she could hold a pen but her love affair with fiction started when the entirety of David Eddings’ 'The Belgariad' was read to her at age four. She currently has a couple of books and half a dozen short stories on the go. She spends her free time writing, analysing media and knitting very colourful scarves.

More posts by this author.

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• DVD & Streaming

Bright Star

• Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• September 16, 2009
• Ben Whishaw as John Keats; Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne; Paul Schneider as Charles Armitage Brown; Kerry Fox as Mrs. Brawne; Edie Martin as Margaret 'Toots' Brawne; Thomas Sangster as Samuel Brawne

Home Release Date

• January 26, 2010
• Jane Campion

Distributor

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

They were an unlikely couple. Her vexing wit, inexperience with literature and “obsession with flounce and cross-stitch” mingling with his quietness, depth of soul and melancholy verse. Her breeding and social standing vs. his lack of standing, occupation and fortune. Both John Keats and Fanny Brawne desperately want to change their circumstances. But there are impossibilities in early 19th century England. It is equally impossible, though, to undo the romantic attachment between the then-failed, penniless poet and his more prosperous young neighbor.

The couple meets during the winter of 1818, when he is in his early 20s and she still a teenager. Never one to read poetry before, Fanny has her young brother Samuel and sister Toots buy a book of Keats’ poems after their acquaintance. She then indulges in his words, and through them develops a hunger to learn more about the man behind the writing. Keats, in turn, gradually studies her and ultimately becomes her literature tutor—albeit a teacher with romantic ulterior motives. Their love blossoms.

Their families and friends can see, if they cannot, that because of the couple’s societal differences, John and Fanny will never be able to wed. Keats’ friend Charles Armitage Brown is staunchest among them, telling the poet that he will lose his freedom as he struggles to provide for what Brown considers to be Fanny’s frivolous needs.

When Keats’ failing health solidifies his reluctant desire to mercifully sever ties with Fanny, they fight to understand and navigate their increasingly passionate relationship under the glare of pre-Victorian stuffiness and Brown’s disapproval.

Bright Star beautifully illustrates all of this, the poignant and celebrated story of John and Fanny’s two-year romance.

Positive Elements

Fanny comes from a loving household that happily embraces the ailing Keats as one of their own. For his part, he is deeply compassionate, diligently caring for his dying brother Tom. Fanny follows suit, tending to both Tom’s and John’s needs through their sicknesses, making gifts, doing kind errands and staying at their bedsides bringing great emotional support.

John and Fanny’s shared love is powerful and transformative. It simultaneously comforts, inspires, focuses and distracts them. Some of Keats’ best poetry was written during the years he knew Fanny. And through his relationship with Fanny and her mother, Keats comes to better understand women.

This is a period piece, and antique English manners are seen in full force. Though deeply in love, Keats and Fanny still call each other Mr. and Miss almost to the end of their relationship: It makes one wonder what our own society would be transformed into if we more often celebrated this now-maligned civility.

Miss Brawne is an industrious and ingenious seamstress/fashion designer who takes pleasure in her craft. Keats delights in his as well, though during his life he does not share the same degree of encouragement and attention that Fanny is given for her work. But despite receiving poor reviews and questioning his literary ability, he writes because he is passionately devoted to working with the words he loves.

For all his abrasiveness, Brown selflessly cares for Keats’ needs as well and loves him deeply. When he can no longer house the poet or accompany him when he travels—because of his own moral and financial weaknesses—he admits he has failed his dear friend. Into this gap, as it were, come other of John’s friends who rally together to fund his passage to Italy in an attempt to improve his health. One of them puts his own life on hold to go with him. If John can be spared the stress of another harsh English winter, they believe he might live.

Spiritual Elements

Heaven is mentioned in verse. Keats talks of the holiness of love. Brown tells Abigail, a kitchen maid who wants to learn how to read, that the Bible isn’t as boring as she might expect. In fact, The Song of Songs, he says, is “juicy” and would make people blush.

A grieving Fanny cries, “There must be another life. You can’t be created for this kind of suffering.” In between sobs, she says “oh god” several times—whether in frustration or to Him it’s difficult to say. In a letter written of his last moments, Keats is quoted as thanking God that the time of his death has finally come.

Sexual & Romantic Content

John and Fanny’s romance, according to their letters and Bright Star , evolves not from lust, but from a meeting of intellects and hearts. As Fanny reads the poet’s words, she better understands his soul, and as Keats teaches Fanny literature and discusses life with her, he better appreciates hers—though she initially exasperates him.

The real beauty in their romance is that though they’re portrayed as being sexually tempted, their relationship is never carnally consummated. Fanny does offer herself to John, but he gently pushes her away and replies, “I have a conscience.” And I should note that her offer comes in such a veiled manner, younger eyes who see this film won’t even understand it.

So, never mind that John Keats may well be the most famous of the Romantic-era poets, it’s not sexual conquest that consumes him. It’s his moral responsibility and attention to Fanny’s emotional and spiritual wellbeing that shine in this film. Calling the film “prudish,” indiewire.com writer Eric Kohn says of Keats’ noble refusal, “This might sound horribly simplistic, but [ Bright Star ] desperately needs a sex scene. The movie puts such prominent focus on the romantic attraction shared by two characters … and yet the full culmination of their desire remains solely implied. As a result, Bright Star not only takes place in [England] during the 1800s; it seems like a product of that very era. Perhaps that’s the point.”

That is likely the point—as well as the truth. At least that last bit. Because I wholeheartedly refute the notion that the movie desperately needs a sex scene . In a modern world where premarital sex is glorified, ubiquitous and even considered healthy, it’s fabulous that history and a film portray it as sacred.

John and Fanny do kiss passionately a few times onscreen. They also cuddle, fully dressed, on a bed and John talks of a day when he can kiss her “everywhere.” These activities, mild as they may seem to 21st century minds, leave director Jane Campion’s dedication to precise historical accuracy slightly in question since such physical contact would have put Fanny in much greater peril of contracting tuberculosis, which she never did. And because of their culture’s mores, it’s debatable whether even this limited intimacy would have occurred.

A side note: As a result of their relationship, Fanny is subject to scandalous gossip. English history claims that the real-life Brawne was promiscuous, but this might merely be because she enjoyed parties and dancing with the military men in her hometown. Not to mention that she was seen with Keats, a man whom all but she knew she could not marry.

In stark contrast to Keats’ virtue, Brown crudely asks John why he doesn’t “bed” Fanny, thinking that a sexual encounter might help him concentrate on his work again. Brown’s more casual attitude toward sex is also illustrated by his flirtatious alliance with a household maid. When the girl finds she is pregnant, she accuses Brown of being the father. In Bright Star he swears to Keats that the child is not his—though historical accounts indicate otherwise—but he takes financially responsibility for the baby. Keats says of the situation, “In what stumbling ways a new soul is begun.”

Violent Content

Infuriated by Brown’s mockery of Fanny, Keats shoves his friend against a tree by his lapels. He also backs Fanny into a tree in a moment of frustration.

Emotionally distraught, Fanny reportedly asks for a knife “to kill herself.” Though we don’t sense that she’s serious, we see a gouge on Fanny’s wrist before the camera shows us her scissors.

Crude or Profane Language

Fanny yells “d–n” after the frustration of a lovers’ quarrel.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Wine is referenced in poems. Brown smokes.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Fanny and Brown’s relationship is fairly contemptuous, with both slighting the other frequently and assuming the worst of each other’s character. She bitterly accuses him of failing Keats.

To save face, Fanny lies to Brown about having read numerous, lengthy pieces of literature in only a week. And several times Fanny is rude to her siblings and mother while selfishly consumed with her own problems—both real and imagined.

Most would agree with Fanny when she tells Keats, “Poems are a strain to work out.”

Several years ago, at the end of a long spring semester when sunshine and summer vacation were calling my overworked students’ names, I asked an especially weary British literature class whether or not they believed the Romantic poets were real people at all. Their lack of enthusiasm for poetry seemed to indicate that they believed more strongly in the reality of yeti.

Most told me that they felt the likes of Keats and other Romantics were merely dead words on musty pages. I did my best to change that—but the beauty of poetry often gets lost in a pupil’s upcoming chemistry exam or the rush of a basketball game. Then, as adults, we rarely go back to study poems.

That’s a shame, certainly. Writing’s rhythm, historical context, humor and the vibrancy of its authors’ lives may seem meaningless in present-day busyness, but that’s not because they are irrelevant. It’s because we haven’t found ways to bring them to life. Just as Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed, not plodded through in a textbook, poetry was written to be lived.

I wish, then, that I’d had access to this movie while teaching Keats. Bright Star isn’t likely to be a blockbuster—it’ll do well to cover its own costs—but its character, elegantly filmed scenes and well-acted story make it worthy of Keats’ greatness.

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” Keats wrote. “Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” I don’t think it crass to suggest that a modern motion picture such as this can be one of those things of beauty. And I am hopeful that more than a few people will find this perceptive, intellectual film to be a joy in an entertainment industry fraught with mindless explosions, salacious plotlines and crude dialogue.

It certainly brings Keats and his work to glorious life.

PluggedIn Staff

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Bright Star (2009)

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What it's about

Jane Campion’s biographical drama about the poet John Keats derives its name from one of the latter’s greatest love sonnets: Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art… / Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath/ And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Keats remains one of the most celebrated and adored Romantic poets. His writing challenged the poetic form, and revered the world for what it is at its best: wondrous, surprising, sublime. Ben Whishaw’s portrayal of Keats is rightfully distant, as we encounter the poet’s incredible aloofness through the perspective of interested suitor Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Brawne’s relationship with Keats was short but intense, providing great artistic inspiration and devastating devotion. Campion perfectly captures their fleeting relationship in this deft, crushing drama.

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Cast and crew.

• Director: Jane Campion
• Screenwriter: Jane Campion
• Abbie Cornish
• Thomas Sangster
• Paul Schneider

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