New Zealand director Jane Campion has divided audiences and critics for years and one can only imagine that her latest work, Bright Star will have the same effect. The film is set in London 1818 and a secret love affair begins between 23 year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw), and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an out-spoken student of high fashion.
This unlikely pair begin at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, while she was unimpressed not only by his poetry but also by literature in general. However, when Fanny heard that Keats was nursing his seriously ill younger brother, her efforts to help touched Keats and when she asked him to teach her about poetry he agreed. The poetry soon became a romantic remedy that worked not only to sort their differences, but also to fuel an impassioned love affair.
When Fanny's alarmed mother and Keats' best friend finally awoke to their attachment, the relationship hand an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept deeply into powerful new sensations, "I have the feeling as if we're dissolving," Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that only deepened as their troubles mounted.
On a purely cinematic level, Campion’s eye for detail is striking, both in the physical detail of the period and in the film’s exploration of British class. The film is strikingly elegant and lush but the film lacks a narrative rhythm. The pacing is uneven and plodding at times, and only the patient of audience will be compelled by the film’s sheer stagnancy. One of the problems is that Keats and Fanny are terribly underplayed by their actors, resulting in performances that fail to connect on any real emotional level.
This is symptomatic of Campion’s work defined by its lush and beautiful imagery often at the expense of emotional resonance. In "Bright Star", this is further heightened by the lacklustre work of the central performances that do little justice to their characters emotional growth. Both hold back to such an extent, that contemporary audiences would soon detach from what they go through. Abbie Cornish is certainly more effective, looks gorgeous and the camera loves her, but she lacks a certain punch and is never fully convincing, less so than Barnes.
It is hard to know who will see "Bright Star", a period film that is humorless and dour, though elegant and wistful. The film is likely to succeed in Britain and Australia, but will find it tough to connect to Americans who have little interest in either British 19th century social mores, or Keats and his doomed love life. But Jane Campion makes films for herself rather than take on commercial considerations, and perhaps that’s what makes her a divisive but fascinating artist.
