Bright Star (2009) ~ Unrequited Screen

Director: Jane Campion; Screenplay: Jane Campion; Cinematographer: Greig Fraser

Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider

based on a biography by Andrew Motion, "Keats"

Bright Star is a movie about poetry and how romance translates through it. It’s a biographical movie that tells a story between a now famous romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. After watching so many horror movies, that soft poetic romance seemed… insipid. Usually I’m such a sucker for a sob love story but this was such a d r a g. It didn’t seem like poetry inside of a movie. It was rather movie around poetry. And as a 21^st century girl I’ve never liked poetry, even less been taught about it. Which now to think about, seems sad and makes me judge now-days overly radical approach to life.

Bright Star was a typical British romantic movie with nature and a male lead that was a very gentleman. But when it comes to the female lead things go wrong. The female character was one dimensioned, annoying, dazed-eyed, naïve girl with the qualities of Bella Swan*. Through most of the movie I was distracted with her acting like an effing hormonal teenage girl, which in the end was tragic. I was so disappointed that there was no actual development. Just swinging back and forth between two plot points and in the end getting nowhere. You can do biographical without things getting dull.

Fortunately one supporting character was interesting enough and seemed to see things of how they were. That was Mr. Brown who was portrayed by Paul Schneider. Schneider was great, one of the best things about this and managed to come off quite hilariously. But what seemed ridiculous though was that Brown later had an unexpected development, which in my opinion was by far the most intriguing part of the whole film. As a character he was straight on and never failed to see how things would probably end for them.

As it seems this shall be kept short for the lack of material or for the lack of thoughts about the material. As a side note I’d like to point out that it took me three days to get through the whole thing. It didn’t have to be two hours long or they just could’ve filled that time with something else… something exciting.

*Not that I’d ever publicly admit to watching Twilight