Wednesday, 17 March 2010

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Bright Star

Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish shine in this beautiful story of an intense and doomed love

Abbie Cornish shimmers in Bright Star

Tragic lovers John Keats and Fanny Brawne play out their brief and touching romance in this film written and directed by Jane Campion, director of The Piano.

It's 1818 and Keats (Ben Whishaw) is at 23 already embarking on the career that ensure his name lives on after his cruelly early death from TB.

Fanny (Abbie Cornish) is the girl next door who fascinates him and proves more unconventional than the Romantic poet.

Her family disapproves of him because he has no money. 

Keats's friend Mr Brown (Paul Schneider) dismisses her as an airheaded floozy who will stifle the poet's brilliance.

Abbie Cornish brings the little-known Fanny to life showing her as spirited and a rebel in her small way. Ben Whishaw shows Keats, the great Romanticist, as more cowardly than her in throwing off convention. 

It's Fanny who is the real Bright Star of the show.

Bright Star is out on DVD now

Gillian Crawley