This is the first frock in Woolwich or Hampstead to have a triple-pleated mushroom collar”, says Fanny (Abbie Cornish) to Keats (Ben Whishaw) in one of many VERY FUNNY costumes. Jane Campion’s Bright Star takes a look at Keats’ life through his love affair with dressmaker Fanny Brawne, based on a biography written by Andrew Motion.

There is no doubt that this is very beautifully filmed, with sweeping seasonal changes, panning shots of romantic wanderings over Hampstead Heath, and intimate nuzzlings as Keats curls his louche legs and chiselled jaw around Fanny’s nooks and crannies. Swoon. Despite taking a good fifteen minutes to get used to the ridiculousness of Fanny’s attire, the aesthetic of this film is light and sumptuous, and Campion has clearly opted for a subtle focus on nature and human nature, rather than letting loose with poetical passion. The scene in which Fanny and Keats follow young Toots after stealing their first kiss is reminiscent of a game of ‘Grandma’s Footsteps’. Whenever Toots turns to look, the recently officiated lovers freeze, and we can appreciate the immensity and fragility of this moment as it is paused and elongated.

However, this moment is fleeting, and suddenly we are expected to believe the couple are stuck in a yearning, aching, hopeless love for one another. Keats’ debt and consumption are tearing them apart, and yet it isn’t quite clear how they got together. Campion chooses to limit the appearance of sexuality to Mr Brown’s (Keats’ over-protective Scottish mentor played by Paul Schneider) tryst with Abigail, the maid, but this serves to make Keats and Fanny’s affections seem super soft and sweetly superficial: there is only so much hand pressing from either side of a wall you can take. Indeed, Mr Brown’s actions with Abigail then stick out like a sore thumb. When Keats tells Mr Brown that they will send whoever made Abigail pregnant to the butchers, Mr Brown in top-to-toe tartan takes on a panto villain presence, and I find myself wanting to scream ‘he’s beeehiiind you’.

There are huge moments of grief and swathes of sincerity from all the leads that make Bright Star enjoyable viewing. A lot happens in this film, and you do develop sympathy for the characters. There are also vast snatches of poetry and letter reading, which will surely come in useful for any student wishing to brush up on their Romantic trivia. But this was arguably the film’s greatest flaw: all too often it felt as though Campion was constructing a film based around verse and documentation. It was brave and effective at times when the poetry and letters were recited aloud, but this was certainly over-done. Of course ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ is sad and dramatic, but I don’t want to feel paralysed and stuck in my seat when it is repeated over the ending credits.

I wish Campion had chosen to film half the story (preferably the second half) because some scenes felt rushed and clipped too short, and there was much I’d have liked to ‘muse’ over in the relationship’s build up. Keats tells Fanny, “there is a holiness to the heart’s affections”, but in Bright Star Campion never allows this sentiment to fully flourish from a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly resting on Fanny’s bosom. The ‘butterfly scene’ in which Cornish seems momentarily and suddenly suicidal drowned in a sea of dead butterflies is priceless comedy: See the film if only for this, and for Whishaw’s apish but undeniable hotness.