bright star
Jun. 18th, 2011 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOh my god, I am pretty sure I lost brain cells watching Bright Star. Like, it's very pretty and critically acclaimed and all, but OH MY GOD. I actually finished weaving in the ends on my sock as the credits rolled so it wasn't a complete loss of two hours, but...holy cow. Wow. I have no idea how the film-makers dragged it on for two hours.
Anyway, the plot of the movie basically goes like this: Fanny Brawne is a young woman with a talent for needlecraft and a dislike for men who don't really do anything! Her family is social with some bloke named Brown, whose first name I can't remember ever popping up, who has his friend John Keats staying with him. Fanny falls in ~love with Keats, and there's some stuff with his dying brother, and then they carry on a torrid romance where they can't be in love because Keats has no money and therefore Fanny cannot marry him, but they write love letters to each other and call each other Mr. Keats and Miss Brawne and it's very artsy and emo, and then Keats starts dying and continues doing so for the next hour of the movie, while both of them carry on being mopey at each other, occasionally interrupted by Fanny's mother, who wants Fanny to move on and start going to dances again since she can't marry Keats (because he has no money and is a failed poet), and Brown, who is, like, Keats' live-in boyfriend or writing partner or something? And who thinks that Keats' illness comes from him being in love? I don't know, it's all very depressing. They long for each other and Keats gives Fanny his mother's ring, but she doesn't wear it on her ring finger because they're not officially engaged and are highly unlikely ever to be. At some point Keats moves to London (he does this on and off), but then staggers back to the rented Brawne house and collapses in the garden, and then stays there. Fanny finally convinces her mother to consider her and Keats engaged, since there are ~rumors about her. (We never hear any of said rumors. That would add too much excitement.) Keats' poet friends band together to send him to Italy, for his health, and Fanny and Keats mope around and touch each other chastely some more. Fanny wants to get married so that they can go to Italy together, but that would just install TOO MUCH HAPPINESS in Keats' life, so instead he goes off to Italy and dies. Then Fanny dresses in black, cuts her hair, and walks the moors reciting Keats' poetry and touching his ring. FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE. It is the most depressing, life-sucking thing. I just wanted them to elope and have a few brief fleeting moments of happiness before Keats DIED. AS HE WAS DOING FOR HALF THE MOVIE. It was very exhausting.
Anyway, my roommates saw it and liked it, but they have very different taste from me (I prefer explosions), so I probably should have seen this coming. They were right about one thing, though: the cat was adorable.
ETA: OMG, I forgot to mention how they re-enact The Glass, like, a million times in this movie, although without the slash. LIKE WHEN THEY'RE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF A WALL CLUTCHING DESPERATELY AT IT. Just.
Anyway, the plot of the movie basically goes like this: Fanny Brawne is a young woman with a talent for needlecraft and a dislike for men who don't really do anything! Her family is social with some bloke named Brown, whose first name I can't remember ever popping up, who has his friend John Keats staying with him. Fanny falls in ~love with Keats, and there's some stuff with his dying brother, and then they carry on a torrid romance where they can't be in love because Keats has no money and therefore Fanny cannot marry him, but they write love letters to each other and call each other Mr. Keats and Miss Brawne and it's very artsy and emo, and then Keats starts dying and continues doing so for the next hour of the movie, while both of them carry on being mopey at each other, occasionally interrupted by Fanny's mother, who wants Fanny to move on and start going to dances again since she can't marry Keats (because he has no money and is a failed poet), and Brown, who is, like, Keats' live-in boyfriend or writing partner or something? And who thinks that Keats' illness comes from him being in love? I don't know, it's all very depressing. They long for each other and Keats gives Fanny his mother's ring, but she doesn't wear it on her ring finger because they're not officially engaged and are highly unlikely ever to be. At some point Keats moves to London (he does this on and off), but then staggers back to the rented Brawne house and collapses in the garden, and then stays there. Fanny finally convinces her mother to consider her and Keats engaged, since there are ~rumors about her. (We never hear any of said rumors. That would add too much excitement.) Keats' poet friends band together to send him to Italy, for his health, and Fanny and Keats mope around and touch each other chastely some more. Fanny wants to get married so that they can go to Italy together, but that would just install TOO MUCH HAPPINESS in Keats' life, so instead he goes off to Italy and dies. Then Fanny dresses in black, cuts her hair, and walks the moors reciting Keats' poetry and touching his ring. FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE. It is the most depressing, life-sucking thing. I just wanted them to elope and have a few brief fleeting moments of happiness before Keats DIED. AS HE WAS DOING FOR HALF THE MOVIE. It was very exhausting.
Anyway, my roommates saw it and liked it, but they have very different taste from me (I prefer explosions), so I probably should have seen this coming. They were right about one thing, though: the cat was adorable.
ETA: OMG, I forgot to mention how they re-enact The Glass, like, a million times in this movie, although without the slash. LIKE WHEN THEY'RE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF A WALL CLUTCHING DESPERATELY AT IT. Just.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 01:33 pm (UTC)Abbie Cornish wasn't bad as Fanny, but I wished she didn't spent most of the film "moping". I know it's somewhat biographical, but still...
However, I did like the film soundtrack. It's very unusual, since a) it's pretty short and b) it was composed mainly of dialogue (e.g. Ben Whishaw reciting Keats' poems as in the film).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 06:58 pm (UTC)For a while there I thought they were going to do something more with Fanny's needlework than they actually did. *sigh*