Bright Star Review

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 , Posted by Should I See It at 1:57 PM






Film: Bright Star
Director: Jane Campion
Starring: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schnieder.
Plot: Chronicles the three year love affair of poet John Keats with young nineteenth century fashionista Fanny Brawne before his untimely death at age 25.

I wonder if the title of Jane Campion's new film is meant to be ironic, because Bright Star is painfully dull.

I am not a fan of Jane Campion's films. I found her adaptation of Henry James' The Portrait of A Lady to be duller than the book itself. (The most exciting part of that film was recognising a very young Christian Bale, not as Batman, but as Laurie from Little Women). The Piano was simply disturbing. I took an instant dislike to my cinema studies tutor when she told me that it was a fantastic example of feminist film making. But I was drawn to Bright Star because I didnt feel like going to see Avatar, and it seemed to be the most 'girly' movie for a girls night out with my best friend.




Unfortunately, Bright Star it is a period drama thoroughly lacking in drama. Every plot point can be seen coming a mile off: Case in point: "Mr Keats has gone to London without his coat" Fanny (Abbie Cornish) exclaims, looking out the window to the rain outside. Obviously "Mr Keats" is going to die of some illness caused by being caught in the rain. Mind you, this scene occurs halfway through the film, so we spend the next hour waiting laboriously waiting for him to die so the movie will end.

One of the main problems of the film is that you can't even get attached to any of the characters. The two leads seem to exhibit no other personality traits than being in love with each other. Same goes for the supporting characters: no one has any sort of depth to their personality. There is never a sense of who anyone is. All the supporting characters seem to deliver their dialogue is a sort of flat, dead, monotone.

The notable exception to all of this is Mr Brown (Paul Schnieder), who, despite his creepiness in the first half hour, always manages to be the most interesting person on screen.



He's more interesting than the leading lady, Abbie Cornish. I have to admit, after seeing this film I quite surprised at all the attention and praise that has been lavished on Cornish's performance. And I can't even tell you exactly why i didn't like her. She was just unappealing. There was nothing "bright" about her. I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes Fanny.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats fares better, but not much.


Visually, there were some gorgeous shots, but it felt like: here are the people, and here is the token art shot. The cinematography also failed to create a real sense of space. In particular the outside scenes felt enclosed and restricted. There was never any sense of space outside the frame.


The lack of non diegetic sound (for most of the film) was effective. And there are a few charming moments (my particular favourite would have to be when an unnamed character spills his cup of tea- much better in the movie than my description of it here).





Like most films based on true stories, Bright Star concludes it's narratives with a couple of Post Scripts. I HATED them, and i will tell you why.

The first, declaiming that John Keats died believing himself to be a failure, yet today is known as one of the greatest Romantic poets, feels unnecessary. We know that John Keats considered himself a failure, the film has just spent the LAST TWO HOURS telling us that. By shoving this fact down the audience's throat (i an attempt to elict some sort of emotional response) it completely undoes the irony that the film itelf created, of John Keats believeing himself to be a failure, while the audience knows full well the impact of his poetry.

The second post script which tells us that Fanny Brawne spent the rest of her life wandering about the moors, often at night, was just comical. I also expected it to tell us that while wandering, she cried out endlessly for Heathcliffe.


So what kind of film is this? It's...... like poetry itself: pretty pointless.


Should I See It?


Well, it's not a painful two hours, but not very productive either. Just don't expect anything to happen.