Alas, the story told by Oscar-winning director JaneCampion (The Piano) is a tragedy witha social backdrop out of Jane Austen. Keats and Brawne were of the impoverishedgentlefolk, lacking the means for a proper marriage. And as Keats’ healthrapidly faded, his life became a mirror for the verses he penned on theinevitable passing of joy and beauty in this perishable world.
Meanwhile comes the slowly budding love betweenKeats (Ben Whishaw) and Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Sulky yet playful, hisrail-thin body crowned by a mop of black hair, Whishaw’s Keats resembles analt-rock musician in a vintage waistcoat and high hat. The fetching Cornishplays Brawne like a long-tailed cat roaming the china shop of Englishconvention, brushing aside propriety through fearlessly speaking her mind. Theactors reveal attraction through radiant glances. They carry on with tightlystrung erotic tension and the sensuous play of words beautifully spoken.
Campion’s exquisite cinematography sets the story inthe verdant and flowered fields that inspired Keats and his generation ofRomantic poets. Filmed in lighter shades of pale under the milky English sky, Bright Star moves at the languid pace ofthose poets, who waited for the muses to whisper in their ears the way treeswait for leaves in spring. Campion’s screenplay sympathizes with both loversbut empathizes with Brawne, quietly insisting that as a seamstress who designedbeautiful dresses and hats, she was as creative with her needle as Keats withhis pen. “And I can make money from it,” Brawne says sharply, before falling inlove with Keats and his vision of a world of experience and mystery beyond themind’s understanding.
