Movie Review: Bright Star
Sep. 24th, 2010 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerBright Star is a beautiful movie. The cinematography, the lighting, the construction of the shots - I want to step inside, dash past the flowering cherry trees and pound up the steps to Fanny Brawne's room, where her thin white curtains billow and blue butterflies land on her hands as she reads her latest love letter from Keats. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
So it's a pity that the actual story part of the movie makes me want to beat my head against the wall, because that significantly lowers the chance that I'll watch it again. Yeah, yeah, Fanny Brawne and John Keats have a beautiful relationship and are totally adorable together and their longing drips from the screen -
I'm probably a minority of one, but more than the adorableness of their love maelstrom, I felt horrible for Keats' friend Charles Brown. Viz:
He's attracted to Fanny Brawne, who he nonetheless quite dislikes He completely fails at both: the first because Fanny is soon madly in love with Keats, and the second because every time he and Fanny spar, which is every time they see each other - and this isn't witty banter, this is painful yet polite quarreling - every time, he gets upset, and she's unruffled. Also, Keats loves her.
And as for Keats - "Your poetry is the best thing in my life," Brown tells Keats. "It's so much better than mine." (And indeed, have you ever heard of Charles Brown's poetry? Me neither.) He's so devoted to Keats and his poetry that he's paying for the penniless Keats's upkeep.
Keats...puts up with Brown suggests an antagonistic relationship, which isn't quite right. Its more that Brown is good enough when nobody else is around - but oh look, Fanny's here! And you annoy her, Brown, so could you kindly vacate the house you're paying for for the next few hours?
And I get that Keats and Fanny are so in love, and it's so romantic to be completely absorbed in each other (to the point that Fanny stays in bed for days when Keats' letters are late. Get a life!), and...WOULD IT KILL YOU TO THROW HIM A BONE, HERE?
There's an especially egregious scene near the end. Keats has gone to Italy, accompanied by a fellow he barely knows, because Brown doesn't have the wherewithal to go and Fanny, inexplicably, hasn't married him. Her reasons must be good; when she gets irritated at Brown for not being with Keats in Keats's hour of greatest need, Brown doesn't ask why she's not in Italy, but breaks down shouting "I failed Keats!" God, Fanny, why don't you just stab him to death and have done?
But still - the cinematography is so beautiful. The diffusion of light. Fanny and Keats, a perfectly matched set, kissing in the grass. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" - in this, at least, the moving is a fitting tribute to the genius of Keats.
So it's a pity that the actual story part of the movie makes me want to beat my head against the wall, because that significantly lowers the chance that I'll watch it again. Yeah, yeah, Fanny Brawne and John Keats have a beautiful relationship and are totally adorable together and their longing drips from the screen -
I'm probably a minority of one, but more than the adorableness of their love maelstrom, I felt horrible for Keats' friend Charles Brown. Viz:
He's attracted to Fanny Brawne, who he nonetheless quite dislikes He completely fails at both: the first because Fanny is soon madly in love with Keats, and the second because every time he and Fanny spar, which is every time they see each other - and this isn't witty banter, this is painful yet polite quarreling - every time, he gets upset, and she's unruffled. Also, Keats loves her.
And as for Keats - "Your poetry is the best thing in my life," Brown tells Keats. "It's so much better than mine." (And indeed, have you ever heard of Charles Brown's poetry? Me neither.) He's so devoted to Keats and his poetry that he's paying for the penniless Keats's upkeep.
Keats...puts up with Brown suggests an antagonistic relationship, which isn't quite right. Its more that Brown is good enough when nobody else is around - but oh look, Fanny's here! And you annoy her, Brown, so could you kindly vacate the house you're paying for for the next few hours?
And I get that Keats and Fanny are so in love, and it's so romantic to be completely absorbed in each other (to the point that Fanny stays in bed for days when Keats' letters are late. Get a life!), and...WOULD IT KILL YOU TO THROW HIM A BONE, HERE?
There's an especially egregious scene near the end. Keats has gone to Italy, accompanied by a fellow he barely knows, because Brown doesn't have the wherewithal to go and Fanny, inexplicably, hasn't married him. Her reasons must be good; when she gets irritated at Brown for not being with Keats in Keats's hour of greatest need, Brown doesn't ask why she's not in Italy, but breaks down shouting "I failed Keats!" God, Fanny, why don't you just stab him to death and have done?
But still - the cinematography is so beautiful. The diffusion of light. Fanny and Keats, a perfectly matched set, kissing in the grass. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" - in this, at least, the moving is a fitting tribute to the genius of Keats.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 07:47 pm (UTC)I think she didn't marry him because her mom disapproved? And said she should wait until Keats returned even though that obvs was not going to happen...
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 09:18 pm (UTC)See, that's what gets me. Fanny has even more reason than Brown to be with Keats, and isn't because...she couldn't exert herself to argue her mother around? Mrs. Brawne is hardly an unsympathetic parent.
Whereas Brown has legit money problems and is trying to support his illegitimate child.
Maybe she was projecting the guilt she felt at chickening out when Keats needed her onto Brown? And he, feeling guilty too, accepted it with open arms. I think this explanation makes her more sympathetic than the idea that she really didn't see the pot, kettle, black thing.
(Is it bad that I always feel guilty when I dislike a female character, especially if she's supposed to be the heroine? It makes me feel like I'm betraying the sisterhood.)