Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Jane Campion
Cast
Abbie Cornish,
Ben Whishaw,
Paul Schneider,
Kerry Fox,
Edie Martin,
Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Genre
Drama,
Romance
Fanny Brawne finds herself increasingly intrigued by the handsome but aloof poet John Keats, who lives next door to her family friends. After reading his poetry, she finds herself even more drawn to him. Although he agrees to teach her about poetry, Keats cannot act on his feelings for Fanny, since he has no money to support a wife.
Bright Star adds a level of tenderness and detail often absent from period pieces. Even if the romance does not initially draw you in, the visual storytelling will. I probably think about the scene with Fanny lying in her bedroom surrounded by live butterflies once a week.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Masterfully put-together, made with confidence, intelligence and command.
San Francisco Chronicle by Amy Biancolli
A fine-boned, luminous tribute to Keats and the sufferings of love.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey
Intimate as a whisper, immediate as a blush, and universal as first love, the PG-rated film positively palpitates with the sensual and spiritual.
Slate by Dana Stevens
The rare film about the life of an artist that is itself a work of art.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Campion's big-sisterly encouragement of Cornish's lovely, openhearted performance -- and Whishaw's well-matched response -- results in a character instantly, intimately recognizable to anyone remembering her own first love.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Ms. Campion, with her restless camera movements and off-center close-ups, films history in the present tense, and her wild vitality makes this movie romantic in every possible sense of the word.
The New Yorker by David Denby
What makes the movie extraordinary, however, is not so much the portrait of a poet as the accuracy and the detail of the period re-creation.
Variety by Todd McCarthy
Breaking through any period-piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters, the writer-director examines the final years in the short life of 19th-century romantic poet John Keats through the eyes of his beloved, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish in an outstanding performance.
The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett
Bright Star may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along.
Salon by Stephanie Zacharek
The film works on its own as an unfussy, passionate and gently erotic love story that never tips into sentimentality.
The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps
It’s a studied movie that gives itself over to bursts of intensity, and between them sometimes threatens to become as spellbound by its subjects as they become with each other.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Young Edie Martin, with her chaotic swarm of red ringlets and deadpan dutifulness (she has few lines, but they’re goodies), is the movie’s sign of eternal spring--the butterfly atop the just-opened blossom.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
Mainly, though, it's the exquisite restraint - both of Cornish's performance and Campion's direction - that gives the film its power.
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
It's more conventionally romantic than wildly Romantic--but no less touching for that.
Time Out by Keith Uhlich
Writer-director Jane Campion approaches the tale with an artiste’s respectful solemnity, but it too often comes off like "Twilight" transplanted across oceans and centuries.
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