Bright Star
Director: Jane Campion 119 minutes. Rated: PG
Film Synopsis
<p>Starring Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider, and Kerry Fox</p> <p><!-- plot summary -->London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, and 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' 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' best friend Brown realized their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensation, "I have the feeling as if I were dissolving," Keats wrote her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats' illness proved insurmountable.</p> <p>"Masterfully put-together, made with confidence, intelligence and command." <strong><span class="criticname">Kenneth Turan</span></strong><span class="criticname">, <strong><em>Los Angeles Times</em></strong><br /> </span></p> <p><span class="criticname">"</span>Ms. Campion, with her restless camera movements and off-center close-ups, films history in the present tense, and her wild vitality makes this movie romantic in every possible sense of the word." <strong>A.O. Scott, <em>The New York Times</em></strong></p> <p>"What Campion does is seek visual beauty to match Keats' verbal beauty. There is a shot here of Fanny in a meadow of blue flowers that is so enthralling it beggars description." <strong>Roger Ebert, <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em></strong></p>
