September 30, 2009: Bright Star
This wasn’t a good movie night for me. I had planned to go out to the movies, but learned that Extract was already long gone, and the two films chosen, the previously reviewed The Boys are Back and the presently reviewed Bright Star, are tonally completely different and weren’t really what I was in the mood for. What we have here is a costume drama about the life and loves of poet John Keats, primarily focusing on the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. I’m not familiar enough with Keats’ work to understand the subtext, and didn’t really buy into Abbie Cornish’s portrayal of Brawne, although I can’t quite put my finger on why. It’s not that I have some knowledge of how she was, that this actress didn’t match up to. I will say that Paul Schneider, as Keats’ best friend, has found a perfect role for himself. I’ve seen Schneider before but here there’s far more depth to this brusque but smart and ultimately vulnerable character than I’ve seen him create in the past.
Writer/director Jane Campion is the big news in this film, best known for The Piano (1993), and she’s put together some powerful but little-seen movies since then. I don’t know that I saw The Piano more than once and the combination of it not being my kind of thing or well-suited to my age at the time led to me not appreciating it for the classic it’s taken to be. Perhaps Bright Star is the same, but I wouldn’t be able to tell.
Jane Campion continues to elude me.
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