Bright Star
Apparition | Release Date: September 16, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Masterfully put-together, made with confidence, intelligence and command. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
A fine-boned, luminous tribute to Keats and the sufferings of love. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
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 full review
100
SlateDana Stevens
The rare film about the life of an artist that is itself a work of art. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
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 full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Bright Star may not be a joy forever but it will do until the next joy comes along. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Breaking through any period-piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters, the writer-director examines the final years in the short life of 19th-century romantic poet John Keats through the eyes of his beloved, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish in an outstanding performance. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
What makes the movie extraordinary, however, is not so much the portrait of a poet as the accuracy and the detail of the period re-creation. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Ms. Campion, with her restless camera movements and off-center close-ups, films history in the present tense, and her wild vitality makes this movie romantic in every possible sense of the word. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The film works on its own as an unfussy, passionate and gently erotic love story that never tips into sentimentality. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Jane Campion has performed her own feat of romantic imagination. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Its great distinction lies in re-creating an age when thoughts and feelings were to be carefully considered and precisely enunciated. 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 full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Campion’s story of a tubercular poet and his lady love recasts the hackneyed old stanza in refreshing new verse. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
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 full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Bright Star is a thing of beauty and a joy for a movie season that needs it. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Bright Star delivers a prismatic depiction - tart, funny and piercing - of the romance between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne in the three years before he died, in 1821, at age 25. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
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 full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
For a movie so sensuously mounted, it's remarkably grounded. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Young Edie Martin, with her chaotic swarm of red ringlets and deadpan dutifulness (she has few lines, but they’re goodies), is the movie’s sign of eternal spring--the butterfly atop the just-opened blossom. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
That rare, genuinely transporting movie that creates an alternate universe, invites the audience in and lets them sink ever deeper into its particular, sublime reverie. Read full review
80
EmpireLiz Beardsworth
Campion has created another resonant paean to love’s pain and joy, and gives new life to John Keats, too often now associated with dusty school books. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Mainly, though, it's the exquisite restraint - both of Cornish's performance and Campion's direction - that gives the film its power. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Catnip for the art-house crowd. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Bright Star is the New Zealand writer-director's raw, sensual attempt to render Keats as experienced by a young girl who couldn't understand the genius of his verse. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
What the film does best is remind us of the brilliance of Keats flame and how it was extinguished far too early. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Bright Star is a nice ode to the poet, the love of his life, and the period in which he lived. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
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 full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
There are nice bits throughout, and your heart can’t help but go out to these impassioned young lovers whom you know are doomed. But Bright Star is too often tarnished by the ordinary. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
It's more conventionally romantic than wildly Romantic--but no less touching for that. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
In its way Campion’s film is a thing of beauty, but its characters’ inner lives must be taken on faith. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
There's nothing exceptional about Jane Campion's historical biography, but it's a sufficiently lovely tale to suit romantics with a taste for intimate period dramas. Read full review
60
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
Masterpieces of literature-to-film are a rare breed; this film falls short with satisfaction. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
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 full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
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 full review
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