Galway Film Society

Bright Star

The three-year relationship between Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and John Keats (Ben Whishaw) -she was 18 when they met in 1818, he was 23 – is one of the great love affairs of English literature. Cornish gives a wonderful performance as Fanny Brawne a sensitive young woman who is intrigued and amused by the reputation of her neighbour, John Keats, but insistent on her own rival skills as a dressmaker and seamstress. Keats, as portrayed by Whishaw, has the self-possession of a middle-aged adult, the affected detachment of an artist and the eerie self-absorption of a child. The film subtly moves from playful banter and underlying tension into the true love and mutual reliance that springs up when John and Fanny become next door neighbours in Hampstead. The only thing standing between their two beds at that point is the thin wall dividing the semi-detached houses. The action of the film proceeds largely within the summery pastures of 19th-century Hampstead, occasionally switching to the crowded squalor of Kentish Town and beautifully lit by Greig Fraser. It ends with a fine reading by Ben Whishaw of “Ode to a Nightingale”that begins after Fanny has walked across a wintry Hampstead Heath in a mourning dress of her own creation so don’t rush for the exit when the credits start rolling. Sit and savour this marvellous film until the lights come up.