Bright Star – Review

Director: Jane Campion
Notable Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider

“Hopeless romantic” is a cliché phrase that can be thanked for men like John Keats, a Romantic poet whose life was cut short at the age of 25. His works and the works of Blake, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley have permeated our culture with each passing generation. Toward the end of Keats’ life, he began a love affair with his next-door neighbor, Fanny Brawne, that wasn’t always rosy. The romance they had seemed like it was ripped from the pages of a Jane Austen novel. Whether this was writer/director Jane Campion’s intent – Fanny’s portrayal could have easily been inspired by Pride and Prejudice‘s Elizabeth Bennet – the end result is a motion picture that is both a tribute to Keats in his remaining years and a period piece about the sufferings of love.

Bright Star doesn’t have the lyrical fancy of Austen’s works as the story is derived from letters and poems. But it adheres to love story tradition, beginning with an initial meeting and progressing thereon. Fanny and Keats have no connection. She is of modest means, and likes to design her own clothes, attend dances and flirt. Keats is a writer who is impoverished, still trying to comprehend the poor critical response for his published works. His writing friend, Charles Brown, belittles Fanny for fun, seeing her as some superficial tramp that has no business conversing with poets.

Each passing season their love becomes more poetic: some days Fanny is enchanted with Keats, other times she wants to kill herself. Their love never ventures beyond hand-holding and a few small kisses, making their love seem all the more platonic in that regards. Fanny was self-assured and proper, to which Keats adored, but could not commit to her in the physical sense. Keats knew that there is no way he could marry Fanny. He had neither the means nor the health to be a suitor.

Start to finish, this is Abbie Cornish’s film. She brings so much strength to the character, and is the sole reason why the romance works as well as it does. When she receives word about Keats passing, she moves to the foyer of the house and cries inconsolably. The panic she has in her moaning is so strong that you almost fear her heart is going to come out of her chest. Cornish is a young actress that is still under the radar. Last year she was in Stop-Loss with Ryan Phillippe, not a film to gauge the depth of her talent. Of all the characters in the film, hers is the most elaborate with showy hand-woven garments striking with color. Ben Whishaw, star of the little-seen Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, plays Keats as a poet plagued by love and illness. His performance is adequate but not quite to the level of Cornish. Of the supporting performers, the lone standout is Paul Schneider. He brings levity to the picture as Brown in small comic moments, and he’s a formidable foil to Fanny, getting under her skin that only he can.

Bright Star feels like it should be nestled in between John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink and the works of Jane Austen. It is a period piece film that doesn’t feel like an exact recreation of the time. And it’s not nearly a costume drama with the exception of Fanny’s clothes. Director Jane Campion has made a deep, meditative drama about courtship without it being a big, sweeping narrative. As a romance, it is better than average. It may not match the quality of some of Campion’s early efforts (The Piano, especially), but the film is a nice tribute to John Keats in his final years and the woman he described as “the brightest, most delicate thing.”