Today arrives the first trailer for Jane Campion’s Bright Star, her presumed Oscar contender about the love affair between poet John Keats (played here by Ben Whishaw) and his muse (a frumped-up Abbie Cornish) that was cut short by Keats’s death from tuberculosis in 1821 (oh, sorry — spoiler alert). The film looks gorgeous and what little we see of the performances here would seem to indicate that critics weren’t totally hallucinating when they raved about Star at Cannes. But what’s up with the trailer’s ham-fisted voice-over narration (“He was a dreamer; she was a realist…â€). Was it meant to make a point about how far the English language has fallen since Keats spoke it? If so, mission accomplished.
Earlier: Vulture Premieres the Poster for Jane Campion’s Bright Star