Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bright Star (DVD)

Bright Star (2009) starring Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider. Directed by Jane Campion. Nineteenth-century Romantic poet John Keats (Whishaw) meets and falls in love with his great passion and muse, Fanny Brawne (Cornish). Their brief union (Keats dies three years after they meet) is problematic -- because Keats is in debt, has no income and no prospects, and because his friend and literary companion Charles Brown (Schneider) does not approve of Fanny. So Keats and Brawne can never be fully united, and their romance is primarily a sad one. Oddly enough, the focus of the movie is on Fanny, not Keats, and Cornish gets the bulk of the screen time. The subtitles are very good -- large, bold, readable type. Grade: B

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