Bright Star

A beautiful depiction of love and loss, Campion’s film Bright Star charts the sad love affair between the nineteenth-century poet John Keats and his neighbour and lover, Fanny Brawne, during the years in which the poet penned much of the most celebrated verse in the Romantic period. Narrated from Brawne’s view on the romance, the movie not only uncovers the evolution of their young romance, but traces Fanny’s introduction into and fascination with Keats’s world of poetry, starting with indifference and ending with heartfelt involvement. At the time the two people meet in 1818 once Keats has properly set himself up in the literary world. However, his job does not enable him the financial means to marry. With this knowledge, Brawne’s interaction with Keats is stymied, so she throws herself into his world by feigning a fascination with poetry. Keats’s poetry counts among some of the greatest works in British literature.