So I saw Jane Campion's Bright Star this weekend. I was really looking forward to it, however I was totally disappointed despite the rave reviews I read.
1. Abbie Cornish is fantastic in it. Carried the movie on her shoulders, she is immensely watchable. She is particularly excellent in a devastatingly emotional scene at the end of the movie.
2. This movie looks gorgeous. It is like it was made by a painter. Every scene is a beautiful canvass. The lighting, the setting, the vistas...all beautiful. Check out the scene where Cornish sits on a bed by an open window while the wind blows a curtain towards her. I have not seen a more lyrically beautiful scene this year.
3. Ben Whishaw underwhelms. I think he looks the part, all small and handsomely sickly. But he did not deliver. I did not believe for a moment that he was passionate about anything, not Cornish, not poetry.
4. There were a few other good performances. Both Kerry Fox and Paul Schneider were good. And Edie Martin who played the young sister Toots, was a charming presence.
5. But that screenplay. This movie was long, dull and boring. Yes beautiful to look at with a couple of emotional moments, but it took forever and a day. I was never more bored at the movies this year. Dull, dull, dull.
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