When a director handles with English writers' biographies, it is easy to fall into the clichè, when one deals with the biography of a romantic English poet, it could be still easier to fall into the manneristic-romantic, and the risk of disappointment is always lurking. Although I have a strong feeling for this kind of movies, in a way that whenever a shot on some English countryside appears, I could lose my sense of reality, I can objectively say that the fore-mentioned risk is totally and thankfully absent in "Bright Star", which on the contrary stands out for its sober and delicate handling of the short life of John Keats and of his deep love for Fanny Brown. It's through Fanny's eyes we get to know Keats' inner world and poetry, the verbal beauty of his poems, full of pathos, inner longing for life and death, passionate, whereas their love story remains almost platonic, fixed on a perfect level, where nothing can contaminate their deep communion. And still Jane Campion has the merit not to heat up their story, and to depict subtle, almost evanescent moments of their encounters. Very intense interpretations are offered by the two leading actors, but I would say that every character has a precise and significant meaning inside the movie. Easily to be perceived as a slow picture, Jane Campion gets to convey through a movie, which requires motion in itself, the slowness required by poetry. Poetry , writing, love require time, patience, and silence. The silent moments between Keats and Fanny are as intense and evocative as when they recite poetry, even the discrete, silent presence of Fanny's brother makes a sense. Wonderful, to say the least, the shots with Fanny lying on a lavender field, and the one with butterflies inside her room: truly ravishing.
