Bright Star (2009)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Jane Campion

Writer:

Jane Campion (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 October 2009 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

First Love Burns Brightest

Plot:

The drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25. |

Plot Keywords:

Poet | 19th Century | 1810s | Bluebells | Rome Italy

Awards:

1 nomination

US Showtimes:

Beverly Center Cinemas

12:00pm | 2:45 | 7:30

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Cast

Ben Whishaw	...	John Keats
Abbie Cornish	...	Frances 'Fanny' Brawne
Kerry Fox	...	Mrs. Brawne
Paul Schneider	...	Charles Armitage Brown
Edie Martin	...	Margaret 'Toots' Brawne
Thomas Sangster	...	Samuel Brawne
Gerard Monaco	...	Charles Dilke
Antonia Campbell-Hughes	...	Abigail O'Donaghue Brown
Samuel Roukin	...	John Reynolds
Amanda Hale	...	Reynolds' Sister I
Lucinda Raikes	...	Reynolds' Sister II
Samuel Barnett	...	Joseph Severn
Jonathan Aris	...	Leigh Hunt
Olly Alexander	...	Tom Keats
Theresa Watson	...	Charlotte

MPAA:

Rated PG for thematic elements, some sensuality, brief language and incidental smoking.

Runtime:

Canada:119 min

Country:

UK | Australia | France

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Ireland:PG | USA:PG (certificate #45535) | Canada:G (British Columbia) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Jan Chapman Pictures

Trivia:

Abbie Cornish was the first actress to audition for the part, and waited one month to hear that she got it.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: A boom mic is visible above Keats' head in the scene where he bids a final and constrained farewell to Fanny inside the foyer of the house on the morning he departs for Rome.

Quotes:

Fanny Brawne: [the night before he leaves] You know I would do anything
John Keats: I have a conscience.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: (2009-09-19)" (2009)

"Byron and Shelley and Keats, were a trio of lyrical treats." -Dorothy Parker

Never truer words were spoken- Where words fail, poetry triumphs. Bright Star, is Jane Campion's romantic ode to John Keats. She conveys desire in an ode, consummation in a sonnet. Intimate as a whisper, immediate as a blush, the film positively palpitates with the sensual and spiritual.

There is the ethereal Keats (Ben Whishaw), awakened as from a reverie by the spirited Fanny (Abbie Cornish). It is not love at first sight. She is a seamstress of considerable originality (look at her three-ply strawberry collar!), but Keats has eyes only for nature, not for clothes. He is a poet of controversial reputation, just listen to his allusions, but Brawne has ears only for the language of flirtation, not of verse. Poetry, she tells him, is a strain.

As Campion tells it, in imagery as breathtaking as that of any Romantic ode, when the two are together, colors are more vivid, smells more pungent, feelings more profound. Too often figures in costume dramas are arranged like statuary in a museum. Campion sees the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Together, they flourish; apart, they languish. And, as in any great romance, there are many forces driving them apart. Chief among them are Keats' ill health and abject poverty. Close behind is Keats' meddlesome friend and patron, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider, wonderful as this sarcastic and self-important swan), who rents quarters from Brawne's widowed mother (Kerry Fox). At first, Keats and Brown live next door to the Brawnes. Then the poets share a house with Fanny's family, bringing the lovers in even closer proximity.

Campion, who both wrote and directed, tells their story soaringly. The filmmaker's offbeat dialog has a unique cadence, and her oblique compositions observe Archibald MacLeish's faith that "a poem should not mean, but be." Through Campion's eyes, there is never the sense that Keats expressed to Brawne poetically what he could not physically. Here is a movie that believes that verse and image are physical expressions. In a word, it's ravishing.