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Bright Star (2009)

Director: Jane Campion

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28 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Click here to read a interview with director Campion

Not a great deal happens in ‘Bright Star’, Jane Campion’s breezy and beautiful film about the nineteenth-century British poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw). The New Zealand director’s film is light in the most attractive and dreamy of ways: it floats on its own, intimately explored love story and refuses to be weighed down by either period fixtures and fittings or the later reputation of Keats, whose final years and stalling romance with his neighbour Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) Campion handles with a smartness and sensitivity that feel teasingly throwaway.

That’s not to say there’s anything slapdash about Campion’s story of how Keats moved in next door to the fatherless Brawne family and fell in love with slightly younger Fanny, tentatively courting her and writing her wonderfully honest letters but fatally kept at a distance by poverty and illness. In fact, for this critic, it’s the exquisite detail of the whole affair, coupled with the aerating winds of modernity that blow gently through the film, rather than the emotional pull of the doomed love affair at its heart, that are the film’s real success. (Others, I must say, differ on this point, judging by the sobs and sniffles to my left and right at the London Film Festival screening of the film.)

A combination of unstuffy dialogue, wise casting, unselfconscious performances and sensuous but never pretty photography makes Campion’s version of the nineteenth century feel current but not anachronistic.

Campion came to Keats’s story, which she shot in Britain last year, after a four-year sabbatical from filmmaking – and it shows, especially following the dark, oppressive atmosphere of ‘In the Cut’, one of her least successful films. Her telling of this biographical tale, inspired by Andrew Motion’s biography, feels as if it’s told by someone with much knowledge but little weight on their shoulders. It’s a feeling one gets from the performances too, especially from Cornish and Whishaw, who both, at times, threaten to float off on a cloud of their characters’ distraction. It’s down to the side players, especially an earthy Kerry Fox as Fanny’s mother and a boisterous Paul Schneider as Keats’s friend and protector Charles Brown, to give the film some vim away from the fog of love. Whishaw, with his troubled air and vulnerable features, is perhaps better as a Romantic lead than a romantic one, and if the film has one crucial failing, it’s that there’s a crucial spark missing between Whishaw and Cornish.

Campion treats Keats’s talent as a given and not a cue for creaky explorations of inspiration and artistic otherness. She weaves his poetry into the drama, calling for it to be spoken naturally and not at all awkwardly by her characters. It’s not easy to follow verse this way, but it certainly inspires the viewer to head straight from the cinema to the bookshop.

Click here to read a interview with director Campion

Author: Dave Calhoun 2009-11-03 10:54:14

Time Out London Issue 2046: 5-11 November, 2009

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User reviews of this film

miles said...

Posted on Jan 18 2010 17:48 total waste of space and funding for a vapid torture
which tests your fortitude like a vacuous black hole

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maurice mcnamara said...

Posted on Jan 11 2010 05:09 Good things in this film: Abbie Cornish's performance, not a minx, as perhaps she is supposed to be partly represented, but a contained openness sustained throughout the film, which makes her continually compelling to watch. Many, many shots which are beautiful without just being vapidly pretty. A flow of shots which leave no doubt you are in the hands of a real film-maker. A woman's sensibility that is not just in the sympathy shown to the female characters, but in small incidental details - the repeated part played by the cat which is not necessarily going to do what the film-maker dictates. The scenes where characters sing and dance, entertaining themselves - it may be a-historical, I don't know - but seems more lifelike, fun, even antipodean of outlook, than the mannered periodicity we usually get in period films. The poetry: some of the magic of poetry - a difficult ask in films - is achieved without mawkish, full-blown sentimentality. The film is too long, you know it's going to end badly, so hurry up and die was my churlish thought. But Cornish's portrayal of grief was so powerful no wonder people wept in the cinema. Too many of the user reviews above seem to be driven by the usual Brit emotional constipation and/or a desire to appear superior to the common ruck. Finally, Jane Campion is one of the great film directors, yet her body of work is barely mentioned. Would this happen with de Palma, Scorsese, Hitchcock? - don't think so. Just another chick film - yeah?

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Quixote said...

Posted on Dec 31 2009 16:37 Can't believe Jane Campion made such a weak film. It was like A level students or acting school grads trying to show how much they appreciated poetry. Don't agree with the comments that it was beautifully filmed either!

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Peter Ludbrook said...

Posted on Dec 26 2009 17:23 I was looking forward to sseing this film.so it's sad to report that I found it very disappointing. At no point did it spring to life and there was no spark between the two leads. The result was that I was left completely unmoved by the film which I had not expected. I don't mind films that are slowly paced and a personal favourite is Ozu's "tokyo Story". At the cinema I saw it at (Richmond Curzon) I couldn't always hear the dialogue. It was as if the actors were swallowing their words. I found the music very intrusive and found it absurd that the poem read over the final credits was frequently drowned out by it. Horrible arrangement of Mozart as well! This film vies with "In the City of Sylvia" as my worst film of the year.

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Cappy said...

Posted on Dec 02 2009 09:05 My wife loves the poetry of Keats and loved the film. It made her cry, and she thought that the two leads were just fine.

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Cappybear said...

Posted on Dec 02 2009 09:02 I don't know much by Keats but, for what it's worth, I do enjoy the novels of Jane Austen, written shortly before this period in history; so I didn't expect the film to be action-packed. That said, "Bright Star" made Merchant Ivory seem like Tarantino, plodding along, with dull or irritating characters (Mrs Braune; Mr Brown) and a leading man who looked and sounded out of his depth. Abbie Cornish was good. For someone who strives for authenticity, Jane Campion should note that Mr Brown would not have written with his left hand - a common mistake with nineteenth century adaptations.

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Claire said...

Posted on Dec 01 2009 10:08 I'm under 45 and loved this film. True, it doesn't have the thrills of a blockbuster, but if you want flash, bang and car crashes, go and see Transformers. If you love Keats's words and sensitive performances, see Bright Star.

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Gee said...

Posted on Nov 25 2009 16:14 Well, I am over 45 and I hated this film. It is incredibly beautiful, and not in the vapid sense of certain filmmakers who linger over beautiful places and people. Each shot is carefully crafted and delivered. But that's not enough. I agree with everything Braxton Hicks says: I was also longing for Keats to get it over with about half-way through. The film was devoid of any real emotional charge between the 'lovers' and was ludicrously dominated by a manufactured dramatic contrast between the wistful dying poet and his lusty shouty friend Charles Brown. Ghastly! The most ridiculous line in the film sums up the whole thing: when the distraught Fanny begs to know why Keats is going away to die, he replies that it was because his friends had bought him the ticket. If I hadn't been so enervated, I would have laughed out loud (someone else did). Yes, this is a film about Fanny Brawne rather than John Keats, but unfortunately Campion seems to have missed the point that 'Fanny Brawne' the love-object and Fanny Brawne the 'girl next door' were two different things. The first was a Romantic idea, the other - who knows? And - well - who cares?

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discerning cineasta said...

Posted on Nov 22 2009 00:55 absolute tosh, one dimensional, predictable, pointless, misjudged, contrived, inauthentic film about some young acting graduates, who are a long way from understanding or mastering their craft, getting to ponse around in admittedly beautiful but inauthentic period frocks. From the glaswegian queen, to the blue denim dress, to the a capella voices competing with the poem at the end, why oh why oh why, all the fuss? Most irritating is that the cooing critics mean that this sort of rubbish will continue to consume funding for the creative cinematic arts when there are so many original, imaginative, intelligent, able and gifted filmmakers with so much more interesting things to say about the world we live in, who have not been funded so that, how many people in the italian crew? (for what seemed to be a 30 second sequence at the spanish steps) can galavant pretending they are making an important film. The only saving grace was the photography which was skillful and picturesque and would have lent authenticity had the colours not been b'stardised in the editing suite.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Nov 19 2009 12:54 I saw this film again last weekend. Reading the other comments here, I see the majority found it dull. Both times, I found it moving and engaging but difficult to talk about afterwards. Seeing it a second time, I did notice that there was something lacking in some of the dialogue (and wonder if some of the better lines are drawn from letters?). One puzzle for me both times was who lived where and in proximity to whom. It was unclear to me from the outset who was living in what house and when, and that muddle was a distraction.
Most people have said that it's a good looking film - though the initial CGI of smoking cottage chimneys is unconvincing. However, they variously question or condemn the performances, dialogue and pace.
It is a film that runs at a very human rate (4 miles per hour at most) but that seems to me to be a chief part of its appeal. It isn't a film about Keats but about Fanny Brawne (and her family's) feelings for him. It does seem to me to be a distinctly feminine film describing the impact of nature and convention on the lives and fates of the characters in it.
I don't know Keats' story and I may only be responding to the potent and growing emotion as Fanny and John's successive separations occur. It is a very simple and direct film and isn't a 'sophisticated' in that it's not at all intellectual but it isn't a pot boiler either; melodrama, certainly, but not false or contrived.
I continue to wonder if the fact that I struggle to find much to say may be an indication fo the film's (and my own) weaknesses. But equally, I wonder, if the capacity of a thing to provoke a clear verbal and intellectual response isn't the only measure of a success.
I'm truly surprised that many felt it thin and dull because it seemed to me full of life.

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jools said...

Posted on Nov 18 2009 08:22 Zzzzzz.....

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philmk said...

Posted on Nov 16 2009 14:18 The whole audience stayed to the end of the credits, as the narrator recited a Keats poem - don't remember which one. It's possible it took that long for the audience to wake up at the end of the film. Some of the photography was lovely, beautiful shots of the apple orchard. The actress playing Fanny, and the cat, were both lovely. The film was far too long, though.

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Terry said...

Posted on Nov 16 2009 07:31 Awful, torture having to sit through it. Completely without interest at any level.

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noddy3636 said...

Posted on Nov 15 2009 17:30 Dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull dull

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Katie said...

Posted on Nov 14 2009 20:49 Truly the most appalling film I have ever seen.
The critics are speaking absolute nonsense! I have never in my life wanted to walk out of the cinema, but I could not wait to leave this flaccid, pretentious piece of nonsense. In terms of acting ability, Whishaw had absolutely nothing behind the eyes. He tells Fanny that they 'will never see each other again on this earth' with as much passion as if he were ordering a Chinese takeaway. Yet again, the casting directors have gone for looks over acting ability. Emotion pours from the actress playing Fanny (and admittedly there is a decent moment where she breaks down) but one wonders whether she is simply trying to compensate for her wooden acting partner. Most dramatic moment? Fanny quivering, 'Mr Keats has gone to London without his coat'. Most ludicrous moment? Mr Keats underneath a hedge. Somebody PLEASE explain this travesty and then explain the mind-boggling reactions from those who loved it!

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