Susan Granger’s review of “Bright Star” (Apparition)
In sumptuous, exquisite detail, New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion (“The Piano,” “Portrait of a Lady”) revels in the captivating-yet-chaste Victorian romance between early-19th-century poet John Keats and radiant Fanny Brawne.
The gentle narrative begins in 1818, when Keats (Ben Whishaw) meets Fanny (Abbie Cornish). He’s living with his crass friend/benefactor, Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider), in Hampstead Village, North London. They’re struggling writers while she’s a fashionable seamstress, the eligible elder daughter of a proper widow (Kerry Fox).
“My stitchings have made me more admirers than your two scribblings put together – and I can make money from it,” Fanny tartly retorts when Brown rudely chides her.
But Fanny and Keats contrive to meet again and again over the next three years. She proudly shows off her stylish, triple-pleated mushroom collar and confesses that his verses “are a strain to work out.” He takes her to visit his beloved brother who is dying of consumption and patiently tutors her in how to understand poetry.
While flirtatious, tart-tongued Fanny falls for frail Keats’ innate sensitivity (“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”), he’s acutely aware that since he’s not only penniless but also in debt, their tumultuous courtship is doomed. Nevertheless, they remain passionately in love – sensual, intense, first love with its inherent innocence and proper purity – until his death from tuberculosis at age 25.
An ardent feminist, Jane Campion’s films tend to revolve around a woman’s desire for love and a disdain for sexual hypocrisy. Made for $8.5 million, this is a visually resplendent, lyrically seductive, superbly acted, intimate drama – with kudos to Grieg Fraser’s cinematography and Janet Patterson’s impeccable production/costume design. Perhaps the pace is slow and measured, perhaps Whislaw’s Keats is too passive, perhaps Campion’s metaphorical flourishes are heavy-handed, perhaps the melodrama is a bit overwrought, particularly dealing with the creative process, but on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bright Star” is an elegant, incandescent 8, reveling in its innate intelligence. And Whishaw’ recitation of Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” is the perfect closure for lovers of literature.
