52 Films By Women: Bright Star (2009)

Bright Star

By Andrea Thompson

Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” manages to accomplish quite a bit, not the least of which is a love story where the lovers not only rarely get any time alone together, but fall in love in front of the whole family. It can make passion difficult to find, but “Bright Star” does find it so beautifully. But I much prefer Campion’s criminally underrated 2003 film “In The Cut,” which is a far darker take on not just love, but our concept of it.

Not so with “Bright Star,” which goes all in on the passionate love story between Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and the poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw). It kicks off in 1818, during the Regency Era, which gave us one of the most prominent artists of all time in Jane Austen, was about 20 years from giving way to the more romantic, evangelical Victorian Era.

“Bright Star” is certainly reminiscent of Austen in how it keeps the sexual tension at high levels without its heroine engaging in sex. Campion brings on the undertones from the opening, with the most sexual sewing closeup I’ve ever seen, as the camera lingers longingly on the needle as it burst through the thread, with the thread seeming to have a life of its own as its follows, spilling over the fabric like sperm. Am I reading into things? Let’s just say that anyone who thinks I’m exaggerating either clearly hasn’t seen the film or wasn’t paying attention.

Unfilled longing is the cornerstone of many a love story, but in “Bright Star,” a romance that would forever remain unfulfilled, makes pining its beating heart. Even Martin Scorsese had an easier time of it when he proved in “The Age of Innocence” that he knew his way around a bodice-ripper in spite of each and every bodice remaining neatly and exquisitely in place. But his ill-fated romance took place in the heart of a New York high society fully embedded in repressed romanticism.

Bright Star

Not so with Campion’s “Bright Star,” as the romance blooms and dies with nature itself. As Fanny and Keats fall in love, Campion lavishes them with luminous sunlight as Fanny’s body is practically ravaged by the wind and curtains flowing towards her. She even welcomes butterflies into the room, much to the annoyance of her mother. When Keats must depart for London to Fanny’s deep despair, the butterflies perish in the cold that will likewise bring on the tuberculosis that will kill him.

Their love is also somewhat unconventional, even if it contains a multitude of conventions. Like many a daunted lover, Keats is poor; his success and fame came posthumously. It makes him reluctant to become attached to Fanny when he cannot afford to provide the support a husband is supposed to give, so Fanny, who has already developed an interest in him by the time “Bright Star” begins, is the one who pursues him. She makes a point to go out of her way to strike up conversations with him, and even tries to learn about the poetry that is the work of his short life, but which she feels is beyond her grasp. She’s even willing to put up with his friend, fellow poet, and in many ways, his wealthy benefactor, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider in full smarm mode).

Brown is also the far more common type of love interest, with whom Fanny shares the type of charged banter often reveals a sensitive soul underneath. But sometimes a jerk is just a jerk, and in “Bright Star” Brown is the kind of entitled, pretentious jackass who constantly demeans Fanny for her interest in fashion, and her growing connection with Keats, which he believes will ruin him and his chances. His selfishness prevents him from perceiving that love can be a source of strength, even when Fanny inspires Keats to write what would become his most beloved poems, including the sonnet the movie takes its title from. 

Bright Star

Fanny pushes back at Brown’s attempts to demean her in a powerful contrast to the quietly powerful connection she shares with Keats, which is based on mutual respect, and their gradual, serene acceptance that they are unable to live without each other. In a sense, Fanny is both realized and not in “Bright Star.” She is wholly herself without proudly disdaining traditional femininity and the interests that typically accompany it, defending and embracing her passion for designing and making her own clothes. But once she becomes Keats’s muse, Campion allows the love story to overwhelm all other facets of Fanny’s life, which was rich and full.

Then there was the public perception of Fanny, which has greatly shifted over the years, and her friendship with Keats’s sister, also named Fanny, and which is completely absent. It’s not exactly surprising that Campion would want to keep us in thrall to one of the great unfulfilled loves of history, but Fanny also eventually built a life outside of it, and I wish we’d caught a sense of that. I suppose not every movie can be “Wild Nights With Emily,” but some films seem to raise your standards, which, much like a tragic love story, can be both a blessing and a curse.

52 Films By Women: In the Cut (2003)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

Seeing as how Valentine's Day is next week, I thought I'd devote this week's column to my more cynical side before I went all-out romantic for the holiday. So why not Jane Campion's 2003 film “In The Cut,” an erotic thriller that is also a kind of anti-love story? If that sounds hard to pin down, that's because it is, and critics seemed mostly unimpressed by it when it first came out. But “In the Cut” seems to be among a cadre of films directed by women in the early to mid-2000s, such as “Jennifer's Body” and “27 Dresses,” that are being rediscovered and reconsidered in light of our current times.

That said, “In the Cut” is also best appreciated as a product of its very specific time. As the film opens on a drab vision of NYC, the song Que Sera Sera plays, a seemingly cheerful number that's all about how unknowable our future is. It's certainly a concept that a city still reeling from the trauma and paranoia of 9/11 could relate to. Appropriately, the film's version of New York is steeped in shadow, and becomes increasingly as fractured as the unraveling mindset of its heroine Frannie Avery (Meg Ryan in a role originally written for Nicole Kidman, who is one of the film’s producers), a university professor.

IMDB

Frannie is the kind of complex, conflicted woman that's still all too rare on-screen, and Meg Ryan throws her all into this role with relish. Saying that she plays against the adorable type she became known for is putting it mildly. One of the first things she does is accidentally stumble across a faceless man getting a blow job from an equally faceless woman. Campion makes us feel as uncomfortable and voyeuristic as Frannie with a close up of the woman's mouth, with a clear view of the guy's member, making me realize I was probably watching the unrated director's cut.

Things only get more uncomfortable for Frannie from there. It's soon pretty clear that the men around her, a diverse set who vary in age and race, nevertheless share an entitled mindset, demanding that Frannie cater to their expectations, romantic or otherwise. A student walks out when she, his teacher, has the gall to criticize his writing. An ex (played by Kevin Bacon) is openly stalking her and shows up in her apartment unannounced and uninvited when she comes home, all while expecting her to give him the relationship he thinks she's obligated to. “Did the fact that we slept together twice mean nothing to you?” he demands in an angry voice message.

In such a misogynistic, painfully familiar environment, the gruesome murder investigation she becomes entangled with soon seems little more than an extreme version of everyday life, with the casually demeaning language the men around her use to describe the women in their lives, to the outright violence that includes a severed limb being found in Frannie's garden. This bloody discovery is how she meets Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo, in probably his sexiest on-screen role), who becomes interested in her after he stops by her apartment to ask if she knows anything about the murder that took place so close to home.

IMDB

Frannie is simultaneously fearful and fascinated by him as well, especially when she notices he has the same tattoo as the man she saw receiving oral in the bar, which she learns may have been the prelude to the murder. As the movie progresses, it's easy to see why many were turned off rather than on. Erotic thrillers are often a form of escapism, where the heat between two beautiful people, at least one of whom is typically very well-off, simmers until it explodes in a heat of passion. Women's sexuality becomes something of a sword and a shield, sometimes being used to manipulate a man, or explored by one who is suitably masculine, and thus swoonworthy. But “In the Cut” is more of a reflection of the real world, where women's sexuality is dangerous primarily because of how men react to it.

The story of her parents' courtship, and how it has affected her relationships, both with the men in her life and her half sister, is partly a reflection of this. Campion tells the story of how Frannie's parents met and fell in love through a giddily exaggerated, idealized romantic lens, only to bring it tumbling back to their grittier present by detailing its end, and how their father went on to fall hard again for someone else and marry about four times. This has led Frannie to become more reticent, while her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) embraces recklessness, what with her obsession with a married doctor and her residency above a strip club, which doubles as a skewed lens of how women are typically perceived. Pauline's eventual fate is one of the only facets of the film which is disappointingly predictable.

Another film would have Ruffalo's Malloy as the kind of exception, a dream boat amidst the crudity Frannie encounters. But there's a reason why Frannie is drawn to him even as she grows increasingly fearful of him. Ruffalo expertly plays Malloy as equal parts menacing and tender, often crude and only swoonworthy during the passionate, yet gentle love scenes. Meg Ryan may bare all, but it is Ruffalo who is more objectified, but not idealized, as he is able to bring Frannie pleasure in a way that allows her to experience a new kind of eroticism for her. As Frannie's world crumbles, Campion immerses us so well inside her unstable, grieving mental state we empathize with rather than condemn her increasingly idiotic decisions, which of course leads her straight into the killer's clutches.

When that killer finally is revealed, he doesn't so much give an explanation for his actions as the feelings which drive him. By that point, we don't need the reasons, and that's probably the real reason why so many people were uncomfortable with this film. What makes “In the Cut” so ultimately horrific is Campion's implicit suggestion that we don't need to look too far for the reasons why so many men feel entitled to kill women. We just need to look around us. At least there's cold comfort in the fact that Frannie is at least able to save herself and find her way back into Malloy's arms, who at last is able to give her a (temporary?) sense of safety.