Cannes. "Bright Star"

By David Hudson on 05/15/2009

[Updated through 5/27]

"Jane Campion has put herself in line for her second Palme d'Or here at the Cannes film festival with a film which I think could be the best of her career; an affecting and deeply considered study of the last years in the short life of John Keats [Ben Whishaw], and the ecstasy of loss which suffuses his love affair with Fanny Brawne [Abbie Cornish] - a love thwarted not due to illness, but to a pernicious web of money worries, social scruples and irrelevant male loyalties." The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw: "Campion brings to this story an unfashionable, unapologetic reverence for romance and romantic love, and she responds to Keats's life and work with intelligence and grace."

"Refreshingly, ['Bright Star'] is free of the hysterics so often associated with films about writers and deftly avoids the distracting surface tendencies that can plague British period pieces set in the 18th and 19th centuries," writes Time Out London's Dave Calhoun. "It's also remarkable in its lightness of touch: the film barely tries to persuade us that Keats is a valid object of this girl's affection or that he is a fine literary talent; we are left to learn both incidentally. They're wise choices, leaving Campion to concentrate on character and emotion rather than any special pleading about genius and its offshoots."

"Taking her lead from the sensuality of Keats' verses, Campion has created a film that revels in the beauty of the English countryside," writes Allan Hunter in Screen. "Gorgeous camerawork from Greig Fraser sees the changing seasons reflected in glowing daffodil fields, meadows strewn with bluebells and snow-dusted winter woods. The central love affair is expressed through modest caresses, clasped hands and lingering glances rather than anything more explicit. It is a dreamy film to make the viewer swoon."

It "may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along," writes Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter. "he England depicted in the film is the one people are thinking of when they say they wish they were born during the time of the romantic poets. Only one scene in the picture shows the ugly underbelly of poverty in 1880s London, and for the rest it's all picturesque houses and gorgeous gardens in Hampstead Village.... The entire cast is good, with [Paul] Schneider, who was among the exceptional ensemble in 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,' and [Kerry] Fox especially strong."

"Then there is the poetry," notes Variety's Todd McCarthy, "which brings home the realization of how few films have ever dealt with poets and their work. Effectively establishing herself as an onscreen proxy for most viewers, Fanny early on confesses to Keats that, 'Poems are a strain to work out,' but then volunteers to take lessons in poetry appreciation, which allows Keats to recommend an emotional, impressionistic reaction rather than an intellectual one. Writing her screenplay in a way that plainly speaks of another era and yet comes across as natural and unaffected, Campion works in snippets of Keats' work at relevant moments, even under the end credits."

Cannes has notes and video from the press conference.

Updates: "The kind of spiritual intimacy between Keats and Brawne is a refreshing spectacle in a festival where it seems almost de rigeur to frame every serious romance with graphic sex," finds the London Times' James Christopher. The most poignant detail of all is that their relationship remained unconsummated.... The scene where Cornish hears the news of his death melted the entire auditorium. Campion films the ghastly melodrama with admirable restraint. Visually, her film is as spare and sensual as the poetry which she manages to stitch into the film with a thrilling lack of fuss. After a recent run of indifferent form, the director is back to her best."

Campion "somehow evokes the aching, giddy intoxication of an impossible love affair, and employs audacious devices to do it," writes the Telegraph's David Gritten. "It is not premature to predict that 'Bright Star' it will match any film entered for the Palme d'Or this year for sheer beauty. It looks a strong bet for honours in a week's time."

"This might sound horribly simplistic, but Jane Campion's 'Bright Star' desperately needs a sex scene," finds Eric Kohn, disagreeing with the Times' Christopher at indieWIRE. "The movie puts such prominent focus on the romantic attraction shared by two characters... and yet the full culmination of their desire remains solely implied. As a result, 'Bright Star' not only takes place in English during the 1800's; it seems like a product of that very era."

"It's basically a Masterpiece Theatre thing that my mother will love," blogs Jeffrey Wells.

"[T]he film as a whole is handsome, intelligent and tasteful to a fault, with no trace of the neo-Gothic fervor that made 'The Piano' such a singular period drama," finds Mike D'Angelo at the AV Club.

Updates, 5/16: "[T]he film magically transcends its standard literary-biopic structure into a lush, deeply moving love story," finds Melissa Anderson in Artforum.

"Campion has a great visual eye, especially for period pieces, but script-writing is clearly not her strong suit," writes David Bourgeois for Movieline. "Unfortunately 'Bright Star' never manages to convincingly capture the love affair between Brawne and Keats."

IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez finds an answer to the question, "Jane Campion, Where Have You Been?"

"[T]he clear-eyed will see a superficial summation of one young woman's devotion to a dying young man, dressed up in costume-drama icing and a sheen of feminist harrumphing," writes Stephen Garrett for Time Out New York. "Overall, it's stuffy treacle. You can see the 'SNL' parody already."

"If you know anything about the brief life of John Keats, who gave us 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and sundry other candidates for literary immortality before dying of consumption at 25, you may be tempted to clap wildly when Ben Whishaw, the miscast actor playing him in Jane Campion's 'Bright Star,' coughs up blood for the first time," writes Tom Carson for GQ. "Coming along just when you've almost given up hope that this stopped clock of a movie will ever end, it's a welcome reminder that eventually the credits will roll and life - yours, not his - will go on."

Updates, 5/17: Joan Dupont talks with Campion for the International Herald Tribune.

"I suppose I wanted more than flowers and butterflies from one of the world's most important filmmakers and, along with France's Catherine Breillat, the movie's premier feminist," blogs the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris. "I want once more to feel her fearlessness, her powers of political correction (which, mind you, has nothing to do with political correctness), her sense of adventure."

"All the strongest points of Jane Campion's style - the banked-up emotions, circular rhythms and eye for landscapes - are on full display in 'Bright Star,'" writes Tim Hayes in the Critic's Notebook. Campion "confirms all over again that she is one of the finest directors of actors around.... Cornish is memorable too in a part that eventually pushes the actor into some shadowy places, but those of us who were left floored by her work in 'Candy' will hardly be surprised by that."

Updates, 5/18: "Campion brings an extraordinary tactility to her images, particularly through her representation of touch," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "With delicacy and caressing light that self-consciously invokes Vermeer, she distills desire through the flutter of fingers against a rough bit of cloth, though I do sometimes wish there were a bit more wildness amid the fluttering."

The New York Review of Books has just posted Christopher Ricks's piece on Stanley Plumly's "Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography."

Update, 5/19: Online viewing tip. The Guardian profiles Whishaw.

Update, 5/22: Anne Thompson talks with Campion for More.

Update, 5/27: "'Bright Star' is gorgeously shot, superbly acted and deeply felt," writes James Rocchi at the Redblog, "and while there are parts of it that'll be familiar to anyone who's ever thrown on a Jane Austen adaptation, there are other moments that more than ably demonstrate what a talented storyteller Campion truly is."

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

[Photos: "Bright Star," BBC Films, 2009]

Tags: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Cannes 2009, Jane Campion, Kerry Fox, Paul Schneider