Jane Campion's Bright Star Gets Movie Date's Top Rating

Robert’s rating:  Thumbs up.

Poetic.  Ahh, 1818.  An exquisite year for the characters in Bright Star and masterfully rendered both visually and atmospherically for the audience by director Jane Campion.

Within minutes, I was effortlessly transported to a time when poetry spoken in a parlour held for its listeners more colour and depth than any HD flat screen. True, many a romance explores the theme of deep love and the tragedy of social constraints that interfere with its full blossoming, but here it seemed both fresh and beautiful.  Though this movie takes its time, give it space to unfold and it will reward you with a deep appreciation of the poetic soul. 

Karen’s rating: Thumbs up

I dreamt about this movie. It’s richness and depth of feeling were so intense. The visuals were as beautiful as any of John Keats’ words. While sometimes the poetry, spoken aloud through the film, competed with the plotline for my attention, it still gave us a real flavour of the world as seen through the young poet’s eyes. Though the movie is billed as a love story, and indeed it is, it is equally a meditation on poverty and mortality. It was his poverty that rendered him unable to marry the love of his life.  And no doubt his poverty contributed to his early death at 25 years old, largely unrecognized and alone. Knowing as we do, that not 25 years later he would be celebrated as one of the greatest romantic poets of all time, gives us great perspective on the calling of the artist.