Moviola > Films > Bright Star

Bright Star  (PG)  119 mins

Director:  Jane Campion

Screenplay:  Jane Campion

Cinematography:  Greig Fraser

Original music:  Mark Bradshaw

London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23-year-old poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw, Brideshead Revisited), and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, A Good Year, Elizabeth: the Golden Age), an 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's younger brother that drew them together.  Keats was touched by Fanny's efforts to help and agreed to teach her poetry.  By the time Fanny's alarmed mother and Keats's best friend Brown realised their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum.  Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations:  "I have the feeling as if I were dissolving"  Keats wrote to her.  Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted.  Only Keats's illness proved insurmountable.  Directed by Jane Campion (The Piano).

Oscar nominations: Best Achievement in Costume Design, Janet Patterson.

"Bright Star is not the kind of historical romance calculated to wring your tears – it has a subtler, indirect approach to feeling. It's a ravishing film, and more substantial and serious than its unashamedly lyrical beauty might lead you to think. It would belittle the film to call it exquisite; better to use the proper Romantic term and say that, in Bright Star, Campion really achieves the sublime."  The Independent

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

For more information, and to see a trailer and stills, visit the official website at  www.brightstarthemovie.co.uk

Showing:

31-Mar        Kilmington

14-Apr        Ringwood

14-Apr        Sherborne

10-May       Thornford

Last modified: 09-Jun-2010

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