Bright Star

Towards the end of Jane Campion’s exquisite new period film Bright Star, the Romantic poet John Keats beseeches his talented beloved, “We must cut the threads.” 

What the protagonist refers to is the intricately fabricated world the two artists have created for themselves in the midst of 1818 in Hampstead, England.  The film dives headily into this enrapturing three-year romance between Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his unlikely muse next door, the sartorially gifted Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). While Whishaw plays Keats with occasional affectation—dreaming, frail and coughing—Cornish embodies her role with unguarded naturality and Jane Austen-worthy spirit.

Their intellectually sensual trysts—hot English-chastity style—are soon opposed by all social circles, notably Keats’ boorish patron and close friend Charles Brown (Paul Schneider), who tirelessly proclaims Fanny’s libidinous influence on Keats’ work.  The biopic tale itself is fairly conventional, though Campion wisely avoids hanging the grand weight of literary history over each scene.  Instead, she delights in a fresh, day-by-day exploration of two casually unique individuals, from their flirtatious to high-spirited to feverish infatuations. At its core, this is a story of frustrated young love, cut short by Keats’ untimely tubercular death at age 25, but more heavily repressed by the socioeconomic constraints forbidding Fanny a marriage into poverty. 

Campion beautifully captures the universality of first love, the heightened romanticism with which it saturates everyday moments.  In one striking scene, Fanny swoons back in her bed as glowing sunlight permeates through her flowing, windblown curtains.  Other scenes are painted as sweeping, impressionistic images: a young boy and girl catch butterflies in brilliant lavender fields; Keats recounts a dream in an intensely intimate forest. Cinematically, Bright Star is visual poetry.  

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” Keats recites, and it echoes in every ravishing frame.