brightstarSince it’s FA Cup weekend (and thus no soccer showing on basic cable), and my Lego Star Wars partner is in St. Louis, I’m using my evening relaxation time to watch a few movies. This is a rarity for me, since watching a movie usually makes me feel as though I’m chained to a chair and unable to move. But I’m giving it a try.

Last night’s movie was Bright Star, a story about John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne (before his early death at twenty-five from tuberculosis). Loads of kissing and coughing and longing glances. Overall a bit of a “blah” movie. As is often the case, I’m not sure how its ratings ended up in the low 80s on Metacritic.

If you are going to have a love story, the most important cinematic need is for the actors to actually appear to be in love. Didn’t work for me in Bright Star. Their love seems to begin randomly, and even their letters  and fits of despair seem part of a game more than true love (like much of Keats’ poetry to me—Ouch!). Instead it felt like two hours of uncomfortable sexual repression, as though the 19th century pinned them down so much that they didn’t even understand what they were feeling. I’m not saying we needed some classic bodice ripping, but the love was all a bit too chaste and intellectual to feel real. (Once again, much like his poetry.)

As for the writing and directing, it was all a bit too heavy-handed for me. Ah, a room full of butterflies to express her love. Uh-oh, a dead butterfly swooshing into a dustpan. Oh no, a rainstorm and a wet John Keats, followed by coughing, followed by blood.

Points for beautiful scenery, for avoiding grand 19th-century balls just for the fun of re-enactment, and for making a movie about poetry, but overall a 2.5 star movie.

Tonight’s choice: The Class, a French movie about a junior high school teacher struggling with ethnic identities in modern Paris. Ooooohhh.