Film review: Bright Star

John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) in Bright Star.

Bright Star
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox, Edie Martin, Tomas Sangster, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Claudie Blackley, Samuel Roukin
Rating: (PG)
5 stars (out of 5)

Reviewed by Christine Powley.

Director Jane Campion has handled historical drama before but with Bright Star (Rialto) she is placing herself firmly at the centre of British high culture by telling the doomed love story of poet John Keats.

American critics have been beguiled by her treatment, the British coolly dismissive.

In a way you are reminded of the cruel snobbery that first greeted Keats' poems. Poetry was for the nobility, not the vulgar uneducated middle classes, and one of Britain's greatest poets is not to be attempted by a bolshie New Zealand woman.

So has her outsider's eye shown us more than we knew was there?

Campion is sympathetic to Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) who traditionally has been regarded as somehow not quite good enough for Keats (Ben Whishaw), a silly minx more concerned with fashion than poetic genius.

Here she understands his poetry but is just as concerned that he wraps up warmly, a practical consideration that was as welcome to the penniless poet as inquiries about the source of his inspiration.

I found Bright Star an intense experience I want to repeat but it will bore the pants off many of you.

So read some Keats and if you love it, this is the film for you.

If not, stay away.

Best thing: There is a stillness at the heart of this film that has you straining to hear every word and to remember every gesture.

It shows enormous self-confidence on the part of Campion as well as faith in her audience.

Worst thing: Campion has created a beautiful bubble which dissolves as soon as you search for more information.

See it with: A reread of Keats fresh in your mind.