Bright Star 2009

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: In its way Campion's film is a thing of beauty, but its characters' inner lives must be taken on faith. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Writer-director Jane Campion has fashioned a fascinating mix of contradictions. Her film is at once gritty and ethereal, grounded and romantic, quaint and contemporary. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: What keeps all this from seeming overmelodramatic is Schneider's huge performance, which is too hilarious. All costume dramas need actors this rude. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A film that avoids any trace of musty reverence for a long-dead poet by concentrating our senses on the breathtaking girl next door. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: Campion, who won fans with The Piano (1993) and lost them with the dismal In the Cut (2003) here returns to the top of her form. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: It's a studied movie that gives itself over to bursts of intensity, and between them sometimes threatens to become as spellbound by its subjects as they become with each other. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: A thing of beauty is a joy forever, but a thing of plodding inevitability is just two hours of my time amiably wasted. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Bright Star shines brightly indeed, not only on the strength of a couple of powerhouse performances, but also as a look back at a time when poets were rock stars, with all the skinny British attitude that implies. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Bright Star is ripe with the eroticism of a proud woman being seduced by words and undone by emotions. If that's not worth more than a year of Megan Fox movies, I can't help you. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The best costumers, set designers, and property masters can't conjure up the mental and emotional spaces of a simpler era; that requires a filmmaker who knows the virtue of quiet, patience, and attentiveness. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Greig Fraser's cool cinematography offsets the heat in Campion's ecstatically literate screenplay, which quotes Keats' handiwork all the way through the end credits. It sounds like music. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: For a movie so sensuously mounted, it's remarkably grounded. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Silence and stillness, as well as the restrained desire of its lovers, are given their due. After the clatter and rush of the summer flicks, patience is demanded but also rewarded. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: For a film about love, Bright Star is curiously cold, more pretty than emotional. True stars have heat. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Campion's big-sisterly encouragement of Cornish's lovely, openhearted performance -- and Whishaw's well-matched response -- results in a character instantly, intimately recognizable to anyone remembering her own first love. Read more

Christine Champ, Film.com: Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Bright Star satisfies a hunger we may not have known we had, a hunger for an exquisitely done, emotional love story that marries heartbreaking passion to formidable filmmaking restraint... Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Bright Star is a rich, sumptuous and, yes, challenging experience. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Bright Star is a well-acted, well-crafted but excruciatingly tepid romantic film about a subject that will attract poetry lovers and yet test even their considerable patience. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: 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. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Bright Star is literate, romantic and high-minded. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Intimate as a whisper, immediate as a blush, and universal as first love, the PG-rated film positively palpitates with the sensual and spiritual. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There's enough material here for a solid, heartfelt period love story -- it may not make viewers swoon the way a good Jane Austen adaptation might, but it's well enough made to deliver an emotional impact. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What Campion does is seek visual beauty to match Keats' verbal beauty. There is a shot here of Fanny in a meadow of blue flowers that is so enthralling it beggars description. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: A literate, lyrical love story in the age of Hollywood crass. I must be dreaming. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Campion -- who also wrote the screenplay, inspired by British poet Andrew Motion's biography of Keats -- tells the story of Keats and Fanny in delicate, painterly colors, layered in such a way that they're vividly vital. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: Every frame of this exquisite period romance features an attention to detail, a passion for literature and an intense, fully clothed, pre-Victorian sexiness that suggest a director in something close to rapture. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: The rare film about the life of an artist that is itself a work of art. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: [Star, Abbie] Cornish shines. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It's refreshing to see romantic drama where credulity hasn't been stretched by the magic of Hollywood or the fantasies of the mind. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Writer-director Jane Campion approaches the tale with an artiste's respectful solemnity, but it too often comes off like Twilight transplanted across oceans and centuries. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: A combination of unstuffy dialogue, wise casting, unselfconscious performances and sensuous but never pretty photography makes Campion's version of the nineteenth century feel current but not anachronistic. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Those who love language and particularly poetic verse will savor the dialogue, as well as the visual splendor of the film. With its gorgeously framed shots and superb craftsmanship, Bright Star is a thing of beauty. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Breaking through any period piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: England 1818 seems like a Fragonard garden, the pastoral height of civilization. Conversation is witty; summer feels eternal. Read more