- I think if there’s one thing to be said about me, it’s that I’m not put off from seeing movies despite the fact that they may belong to genres I dislike or contain plots and characters that make me heave with annoyance just because I’ve seen a previous movie in a similar vein that has annoyed me. I see countless movies that revolve relationships that are meant to be of Romulan and Capulet intensity but come across as lukewarm instead; I get indignant about these things and contribute those failures to the overall failure of the movies in which they’re the core. But I keep trying again, seeing more movies that promise me the ill-fated love to end all love with the usually vain hope of being surprised or enthralled or at the very least moderately satisfied by what I get on screen. I’m not sure if I’m a masochist, an optimist, or someone with a lot of time to kill at the movies.
Bright Star is another one of those movies. I think where movies like this fail me is that I have nothing to sink my teeth into emotionally; we always start out with star-crossed lovers who are tentatively getting to know each other and then BAM! We’re thrown into intense wailing, flailing, and gnashing of teeth because OMG they can never be together for a variety of reasons usually related to social class. Ho hum. I can’t understand these relationships in such black and white terms; that kind of severity doesn’t denote intensity to me, it almost always denotes failure to depict anything at all about the apparently intense emotions the characters are evidently feeling. Show, don’t tell! When Keats lost his shit over the valentine Brown sent Fanny in jest, I wanted to punch him in the face.
The truly sad thing about this is that I thought both Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw were quite excellent as the two leads! Which I suppose is a testament to their skills in this film since despite my hatred for their characters’ relationship, I was able to overcome any hatred towards their characters. Small miracles.
- Paul Schneider was spectacularly gauche and hilarious as Mr Brown. He was able to inject some much needed humour into scenes that otherwise could have felt like one of the lesser Jane Austen adaptations.
- Speaking of which, they should make a parody Jane Austen Movie along the lines of Scary Movie, Disaster Movie, Dance Flick, etc. That would be horrific and yet possibly close in feeling to how a lot of these movies end up being rather generic.
- As my interest in sewing and textiles grows, I was excited to see that not only was Fanny an accomplished seamstress but she was also a rather adept and creative clothing designer. How nice for a woman in a story like this to step outside the world of embroidery!
- The kid who played Sam from Love Actually was in this. He has gotten very tall and I had another “OMG MAN VOICE” moment like I did with Rupert Grint when we saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the first time.
- It’s all very beautifully filmed and if I remove the love story from the equation, the movie takes on a visual poetry of its own. At times there are scenes that are a little too well crafted, but I can forgive that.
- I absolutely loved that they had Whishaw read a poem over the closing credits. I think, more than anything else in the movie, this is where we got to see (hear!) the melody of the words and enjoy the poetry for itself. Occasionally I felt read to when they were reciting poems at other points in the film, but here it felt like a very natural substitution for typical closing credits music.
- Somewhat sluggish in pace, but I think perhaps they were hoping to land on the “unhurried” rather than “comatose” side of sluggish.
Bright Star
Average movie is average.
IMDB Plot Synopsis The drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25.
I’m sorry, I’m just amused by “Romulan and Capulet.” I did not realise ROMEO & JULIET was a time traveling love story about a young girl and an alien.
“Romulans and Capulets” a joke from “30 Rock”.
Random, but they are making a film parodying the Jane Austen style of movie called “Jane Austen Handheld” which is supposed to be starring Lily Allen and Stephen Fry and is “Pride & Prejudice” but told documentary-style like “The Office”.
It does seem to be stuck in permanent pre-production though, so who knows if it will ever see the light of day.
Also, I very much loved Ben Whishaw reading over the end credits of the film. To be quite honest, that got me more emotionally involved than anything Fanny & Keats went through.