Bright Star

Jane Campion’s rapturous period romance is an exquisite vision of transcendent love set in the literary world of the nineteenth century. A secret affair begins between twenty-three-year-old English poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), a spirited and outspoken student of fashion. This unlikely pair begins at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. Gradually, the two lovers find themselves swept away by powerful new sensations and a wave of romantic obsession—even as fate conspires to tear them apart. With a visual lyricism that echoes the sensuous romanticism of Keats’s verse, Campion evokes a world where, though life may be fleeting, great art—and great love—last forever.