Raves for Bright Star

A. O. Scott of the NY Times is rapturous about Jane Campion's new film Bright Star, the love story of the poet Keats and Fanny Brawne. He expecially lavishes praise on Abbie Cornish, who plays Fanny:

The movie really belongs to Brawne, played with mesmerizing vitality and heart-stopping grace by Abbie Cornish.

Ms. Cornish, an Australian actress whose previous films include “Stop-Loss,” “Candy” and “Somersault,” has, at 27, achieved a mixture of unguardedness and self-control matched by few actresses of any age or nationality. She’s as good as Kate Winslet, which is about as good as it’s possible to be.

The film is very romantic, but their love was never consumated:

That Fanny and Keats must sublimate their longings in letters, poems and conversations seems cruel, but they make the best of it. As does Ms. Campion: a sequence in which, fully clothed, the couple trades stanzas of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” in a half-darkened bedroom must surely count as one of the hottest sex scenes in recent cinema.

Watch this scene as they are separated by a wall, and yet communicate their love:

Can't wait!