Bright Star Jane Campion

Critical response

The film garnered positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% out of 175 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 7.26/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Jane Campion's direction is as refined as her screenplay, and she gets the most out of her cast – especially Abbie Cornish – in this understated period drama."[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[10]

Mary Colbert of SBS awarded the film five stars out of five. "If Campion intended to inspire an appreciation and rediscovery of Keats' poetry," she writes, "she has not only succeeded but herself created an artistic monument to his life, love, poetry and soul." Craig Mathieson stated in the same review that Bright Star is Jane Campion's "best work since The Piano, her epochal 1993 masterpiece."[11] Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four.[12]

Poet and scholar Stanley Plumly, the author of Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography, wrote of the film's writing and direction: "Jane Campion has understood the richly figurative in Keats' life without sacrificing the literal wealth of its texture. She has evoked the mystery of his genius without giving up the reality of its dailiness."[13] In 2019, The Guardian added the film in its 100 best films of the 21st century list.[14] In 2019, the BBC polled 368 film experts from 84 countries to name the 100 greatest films directed by women; Bright Star was voted at No. 54.[15]

Box office

Bright Star grossed $3,110,560 at the box office in Australia[16] for a worldwide total of $14.4m.[3]

Awards