The brilliance of Jane Campion is her ability to not only tell a great story but to also capture the mood of a piece. Told with intoxicating lyricism, Bright Star is glorious in its simplicity and flow, which can only be described as poetic.
Taking her starting point from Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats, Campion has developed a love story told from the perspective of Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, Somersault, Stop-loss). The objects of desire in this film are both Keats the man, and his poetry. Dying at the tender age of 25 yrs, John Keats (Ben Whishaw Nathan Barley, Perfume) never achieved in his lifetime the acclaim his work now holds. Bright Star gives us an opportunity to consider what inspired his words. Campion, as both director and writer, has pieced together aspects of his life from his letters and poems.
Fanny Brawne met John Keats in 1818 when they became neighbours in Hampstead, she was 18 and he 23. Though Fanny’s significance in the poet’s life is debated by Keats’ academics, in Bright Star the love story plays out with youthful and feverish passion. There is however restrain to their relationship with the constant chaperoning by Fanny’s younger brother, Samuel (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Nanny McPhee, Nowhere Boy) and sister, Toots (Edie Martin). Added to this is the disapproval of Mr Brown (Paul Schneider, All the Real Girls, Away We Go), Keats’ friend and fellow poet. Schneider plays Charles Brown with a sort of quiet threatening, a man who is jealous of Fanny and John’s intimacy and possessive of Keats’ creativity.
click here to read my full review at Trespass
