Our take
Jane Campion’s biographical drama about the poet John Keats derives its name from one of the latter’s greatest love sonnets: Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art… / Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath/ And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
Keats remains one of the most celebrated and adored Romantic poets. His writing challenged the poetic form, and revered the world for what it is at its best: wondrous, surprising, sublime. Ben Whishaw’s portrayal of Keats is rightfully distant, as we encounter the poet’s incredible aloofness through the perspective of interested suitor Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Brawne’s relationship with Keats was short but intense, providing great artistic inspiration and devastating devotion. Campion perfectly captures their fleeting relationship in this deft, crushing drama.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Oscars
1 nom
Cannes
1 nom
BAFTA
1 nom
César Awards
1 nom
The story
In 1818, high-spirited young Fanny Brawne finds herself increasingly intrigued by the handsome but aloof poet John Keats, who lives next door to her family friends the Dilkes. After reading a book of his poetry, she finds herself even more drawn to the taciturn Keats. Although he agrees to teach her about poetry, Keats cannot act on his reciprocated feelings for Fanny, since as a struggling poet he has no money to support a wife.
Elsewhere
"There's a full complement of geese and mud and some women in bonnets, but Campion avoids finery and ceremony. She doesn't show off the period; she triumphantly makes it a time in which people live as best they can."
— David Denby
Who picked it
Taylor Leigh Harper is a writer from Southern California who covers film and writes across fiction, creative nonfiction, and free verse. She is a contributing writer and curator at A Good Movie to Watch, with work also appearing in Westwind, The Bridge, and Haunted Waters Press.
"[Jane Campion] shows us here the beautiful sanctuaries that word and image create together, and the reasons why life requires us ... to abandon them."
— Nicola Evans