Bright Star

Bright Star

119 Minutes

While doing research for In the Cut, Jane Campion read a biography on John Keats. When she discovered Keats’ romance with his next-door-neighbor, she was overwhelmed. She soon acquired the rights to the biography and in the end, what she wrote was the ballad of Fanny Brawne and John Keats.

Thankfully, Bright Star bypasses the restraints of a typical biopic. It leaves the facts of Keats’ life to the history books and instead concentrates on story. When the brooding Keats (Ben Whishaw) is introduced, there isn’t a hint that he could be anyone remarkable, let alone one of the greatest Romantic poets. The beautiful poetry and dialogue come as an added gift. He might as well not exist until he meets his plucky muse, Franny Brawne (Australian actress Abbie Cornish). In fact, initially, it seems as though the film is about her genius.

In real life, Brawne’s reputation was that of a tart who overburdened the brilliant John Keats and scandalized Victorian society when she exploited his posthumous fame by publicizing his intimate love letters. Bright Star makes it clear that Brawne was right in sharing these letters to the world. It also re-imagines Brawne in the spirit of a Jane Austen heroine, an assertive and independent woman. As independent as a woman could be in early 1800s England, that is. She crafts garments that have garnered her success and her social standing ensures a life full of social events, dances and balls.

Keats, on the other hand, is decidedly less successful. He lacks steady income, is heavily in debt and must depend on his friend and benefactor, the burly Scotsman, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider), who also fancies himself something of a writer. When the two men move next door to the Brawne family, Fanny isn’t immediately smitten with Keats. But with time, a mutual attraction grows, and Fanny starts to flirt with him. Brown is overprotective of his friend, but even more so of his talent, and is naturally suspicious of “the very well-stitched Miss Brawne.” Fanny, undeterred by the boorish Brown and the would-be couple’s obvious class differences, eventually overcomes Keats’ reticence. But as Keats develops a worsening case of tuberculosis, the romance is doomed before it can ever be consummated.

It is Cornish that bears most of the film’s dramatic burden. She delivers a bravely open performance conveying the powerful flood of emotions of first-love. Whishaw, with his frail, wasted disposition and intense intelligence is great as the tormented Keats. Despite an erratic Scottish burr, Schneider’s funny bullying performance keeps Bright Star from being a stuffy, melodramatic costume drama; he possesses clumsy vulnerability reminiscent of John C. Reilly.

As lensed by Greig Fraser, Bright Star has a beautiful, naturalistic and muted look that’s in keeping with its tone. The mostly static camera manages to translate Keats’ poetry into visual form with the carefully framed shots of houses and gardens in the Hampstead village and the Vermeer like lighting of the interiors. In one amazing shot, Franny’s bedroom is transformed into a wondrous butterfly garden; the way camera lingers on such images captures the leisure of a long romantic summer.

Repressed emotion can be the strongest. And for this reason, the lack of physical intimacy only heightens the longing, as the couple try to satisfy their longing through other means. The strong use of subtext easily overcomes the simple, episodic plot. This is a film of stolen glances, loaded gestures, fleeting touches, and words, lots of incredible words. Cornish and Whishaw recite Keats’ poetry and love letters. In most films, this would come off as stiff and stagey. It is to the actors’ credit that they are able to imbue Keats’ words with the appropriate feeling with subtle intonation and inflection.