It would be fair to say that Jane Campion and I don’t really get on, cinematically. Someone only has to play a piano for me to begin to have a panic attack. It’s with great surprise then, that BRIGHT STAR will doubtless end up as one of my favourite films of the year. It’s a simple, and brilliant film, graceful, beautiful and profoundly moving.
BRIGHT STAR is the story of the love affair between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, superb). Shot with immense care and eye for beauty, Bright Star is far and away Campion’s best, and richest film. She has elicited terrific performances, not just from Cornish who is the standout, but from the supporting cast, including Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox.
It is, though, the central relationship that is, as it should be, at the film’s core. Whishaw and Cornish are a hugely appealing couple, and it’s impossible to not have sympathy for their plight as their tentative love affair runs into obstacles such as class, money and social acceptance. While Campion has painstakingly created an atmosphere in which you feel transported back to the nineteenth century, she has thrillingly also managed to make a love story as timeless as it is perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment