Saturday, January 30, 2010

Bright Star



Remember my previous post regarding Bright Star? I finally saw it last night. It actually arrived from Netflix on Tuesday, and I have been slowly dying all week while waiting for the chance to watch it.

It is a wonderful movie. Very well acted. I've only seen Abbie Cornish in Stop-Loss, and Ben Whishaw in Brideshead Revisited, but they are both perfect for the parts of Fanny Brawne and John Keats. The dialogue alone is worth seeing this movie for - almost every word between Fanny and Keats has deep meaning, and much of it comes directly from Keats' poems and letters.

The movie is slow at times, but I thought the beautiful cinematography more than made up for the lack of 'action'. The movie flows like Keats' poetry, it has a dreamlike quality, with very touching scenes of Fanny and Keats wandering through the countryside and meadows filled with wildflowers, longing for each other and dreaming together.

Maybe I like the movie so much because I have read the real story of Fanny and Keats. It is both sad and tragic, and I can't help but feel for their situation. And even though I knew how the end would come, I was still deeply upset. Be sure to listen to Ben Whishaw reciting "Ode to a Nightingale" during the closing credits. It's mesmerizing.