http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810784/

First of all I refuse to link the trailer to this film, it does not do the film justice at all. I am a big jane Campion fan, her film The Piano is one of my favorite films of the 90s. She has almost surpassed that film with Bright Star though. I might be slightly biased since I have been a fan of John Keats since I was younger. Films about poets or artists in general never usually portray their art right, or they show the art right but then the rest of the film is so dull looking. This is an exception though, I don't think I have seen a film this beautiful in years. Aesthetics wise this is the best of the year by far, every frame is fantastic. All the costumes, the backgrounds, the nature, hell all of it blends together in a magnificant burst of colours that is truly visual poetry. Thankfully the visuals are just one of the good parts about this film. The performances are great as well, Abbie Cornish in particular is Oscar worthy I think. Ben Whishaw is fantastic too as John Keets, and everybody else is just as good. The little sister Toots especially has got to tbe the sweetest kid I have seen in a film in ages. She manages to be cute and loveable, but not in a way so it detracts from the overall film.

This is a very slow film, for some it might be too slow. Keats and Fanny spend a lot of screen time gazing at each other, but not in a cheesy Twilight way. You can really feel the emotion resonating in every look. Romance is hard to do well in film because it is easy to mess it up and the film ends up looking cheesy. This however has a perfect balence of romance and plot. You gradually find out more and more about Fanny, John, and Charles Brown throughout the film. Not so much background infomation which is fairly scarce, but their personalities become richer and more vibrant as the film progresses. Fanny starts out like a shallow fashion obsessed girl, just as John, and Charles start out as fairly pretentious poets. Well Charles more so. As John, and Charles move in next door to Fanny's family their relationship deepens, and John's poetry partner Charles even seems jealous at times. The pace is slow on purpose, you begin to understand how difficult it is for John, and Charles to write while they go deeper and deeper into debt and John starts getting sick. All their anguish, and fears seem to be hidden for a long time but in the end they all come out. The pace will probably turn some off, but if you want to see a great romance film I highly recommend it. Read some John Keats poetry too, his stuff is fantastic.

Overall I give it a 9 out of 10.