Bright Star | reviews, news & interviews
Bright Star
Bright Star
Young romantics: John Keats and Fanny Brawne in an ode to passion
Monday, 02 November 2009
Ben Whishaw as John Keats in 'Bright Star'
This poetic romance starts with a surprisingly prosaic image: an enormous close-up of a needle plying its trade. Surreal and (it will turn out) remarkably resonant, it sums up the director's oblique way of looking at the everyday. At first sight a decorous literary costume drama, Jane Campion's telling of the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne offers us a total immersion in a world that's both familiar and fascinating, intimate and infinitely strange.
This poetic romance starts with a surprisingly prosaic image: an enormous close-up of a needle plying its trade. Surreal and (it will turn out) remarkably resonant, it sums up the director's oblique way of looking at the everyday. At first sight a decorous literary costume drama, Jane Campion's telling of the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne offers us a total immersion in a world that's both familiar and fascinating, intimate and infinitely strange.
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