I enjoyed this film, Bright Star, after all I like epic love stories and poetry. Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish did a good job as John Keats and Fanny Brawne. I of course have a few issues with the amount of speculation put in the film about their friends and family, though realistically it is probably true.
I would also like to point out that when John and Fanny were on the outs he took up with Isabella Jones, which was conveniently left out of the film. The film also downplayed his poetry, which for me is what everything is about. Part of what I like about their love story is that is was difficult. Class was used to keep them apart and then illness.
I also, love that after story of Fanny Brawne; she mourned for six years. That is intense by any standards. Then six years later she married. She bequeathed to her children the letters from Keats and told them that one day they'd be worth a large sum of money. None of this was in the film of course...too human I suppose.
I won't conclude with "Bright Star," but instead one of my favorites:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen's grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge Cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
