London, 1818 – a secret love affair begins between 23-year-old English poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an outspoken student of fashion. This unlikely pair started at odds; he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. But when Keats's younger brother falls ill John and Fanny are drawn together. Keats, touched by Fanny's efforts to help care for his brother, agrees to teach her poetry.

By the time Fanny's alarmed mother (Kerry Fox) and Keats's best friend Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider) realize their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations: "I have the feeling as if I were dissolving," Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats's own fatal illness proved insurmountable.

• Abbie Cornish was the first actress to audition for the part, and waited one month to hear that she got it. It was announced in March 2007 that Miss Cornish is in negotiations to star.

• The Hyde House and Estate in Hyde, Bedfordshire substituted for the Keats House in Hampstead. Jane Campion decided that the Keats House (also known as Wentworth Place) was too small and "a little bit fusty".

• The film shot for one day in Rome. Keats' funeral procession was the last scene to be filmed and the only scene of the film not shot in the UK.

• Cornish learned to sew for the part in addition to studying with a dialogue coach.

• Awards: 4 wins & 15 nominations. (view)

• "Jane has this amazing ability to create a world. It's almost like you can feel the breeze. You can smell the flowers. You can sense the cold."
- On Jane Campion

• "It was just beautiful. You melted away into that world. The love story, the loss, Fanny's character, that all felt very real to me and very alive."
- On the script

• "Keats had had sexual experiences before but he decided not to do that with Fanny because he knew he was going to die. He had this whole precious idea of her."

• "They seemed like two peas in a pod. The sense of humor, the sensitivity that was in her was also in him. That was a very rare thing to run into a man like that for her. She grew up in the country. She was just very enthralled by his zest and enthusiasm, and his appreciation of beauty and the smaller things."
- On John and Fanny

• "I looked into that timeframe and what it was like to live in 1818; how she would spend her days. I also read a lot of letters that were passed between her and Keats's sister, and also Keats's letters to Fanny. She had a little day-to-day journal that I was able to see. I also spent a lot of time exploring and understanding Keats's poetry. Then we had three weeks of rehearsals, which were very intense and helped us get a sense of that world and those characters and their relationships."
- On how she prepared for the role

• "We met each other on the first day of rehearsals. But I had such a good feeling about working with Ben. Heath [Ledger] had worked with him on the Bob Dylan film [I'm Not There] and Heath had said to me, 'You're going to love working with him. He's a great guy.' So I was really excited."
- On co-star Ben Whishaw

• "When I step into a character's shoes, I don't judge them. I make a conscious effort not to look from the outside in but look from the inside out, and when you do that it allows you to feel and sense things more, and act and react from a core, you know? When I read the script there were so many things about her that were interesting. Her sensitivity and her love for Keats and her dedication to him were just so pure and gorgeous."

• "I think clothes, for her, are an expression of self because there wasn't any other way to express who she was. Her creative arts... Well, I don't want to say they were limited, but they weren't as available as they are today as a young woman. In that day and age, too, women wouldn't make their own clothes, they'd have someone else make their clothes for them. I think it meant a lot to her to express herself in that way, and I think that's where her appreciation of Keats's poetry came from, from her understanding of what it was to think of something creative and bring it to life."

• "You know, her time and her interests were consumed by love. As difficult as that love was, with all the trials and tribulations, I think it was one of the most incredible things that happened in her life. After Keats passed away, she was in mourning for a really long time, and she eventually remarried and had a couple of kids. She'd kept all of Keats's letters and she showed them to her children, but not her husband. She told them of this amazing love that she'd had with this gorgeous young poet, and I think that really carried through her life, you know? Even in all its craziness, there's something I think was very liberating about that time in her life. It's such a deep love that they had for each other, and she would have done anything for him, gone anywhere for him."

• "I think it was making sure I got the relationship between her and her mother right, because that was always the trickiest one, you know? The relationship between Fanny and Keats was just so present, it's in his poetry and their correspondence, but the relationship between Fanny and her mother... I mean, Jane really had to concoct that and make that was it was. For me, it was about finding a place where they have a strong connection between them and they care for each other, but at the same time they are mother and daughter, and it's different from a friendship or the relationship with a sister or a brother."

• Fanny Brawne: "You know I would do anything."
John Keats: "I have a conscience."

• Samuel Brawne: "Have you got John Keats's poem book?"
Margaret 'Toots' Brawne: "My sister has met the author and she wants to read it for herself to see if he's an idiot or not."

• John Keats: "It ought to come like leaves to a tree, or it better not come at all."

• Charles Armitage Brown: "I failed John Keats. I did not know til now how tightly he wound himself around my heart."

• "She was very different from the way others played the character. They were scared, a little wounded. Abbie played her mentally very healthy. A little young. A little bit of a fashionista, a little ridiculous. Then [Fanny] found her moral courage and strength. She falls in love. It was very winning. You look back on the audition tape and couldn't watch it without falling in love with her."
- Jane Campion (Bright Star director)

• "Fanny is very similar to Abbie. She takes her own advice. She goes against the perceived wisdom of her friends."
- Jane Campion (Bright Star director)

• "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night..." (read poem)

From Critics

• "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."
- A.O. Scott, New York Times

• "With brown hair pulled tightly back and a tad more filled out than before, Cornish is made to look more plain than she actually is, which better emphasizes the importance of Fanny's character for Keats. The majority of her performance's success rests in her eyes, which are remarked upon by Brown for their amber hue and which, one senses, see and process so much. All of Campion's films center upon strong, complicated women, and Cornish's Fanny takes her place among the most memorable of them."
- Todd McCarthy, Variety

• "And Cornish is glorious, making Fanny a force ofwomanhood able to take on Brown (Schneider is a sharply witty irritant) when he tries to break the connection between her and her beloved.Cornish catches the fertile mind that Fanny poignantly tries to nurture, knowing she'll grow closer to Keats by deciphering the words thatpossess him. A literate, lyrical love story in the age of Hollywoodcrass. I must be dreaming."
- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

• "Abbie Cornish is magnetic as the headstrong 18-year-old muse who shyly teases Keats about the quality of his verse. There's a dash of Nicole Kidman about her performance, and the way she can never quite hide the emotions raging behind her eyes."
- James Christopher, The Times

• "The force that really carries the movie is Abbie Cornish's portrayal of Fanny Brawne; the film belongs to her and her emotional portrayal of the girl left behind. She makes you feel every stage of her involvement with Keats, from crush to infatuation to heartbreak when she fears she's been forgotten — and finally, to devastation when she loses her beloved to death. It's almost unbelievable that Brawne was supposed to have been seen as a silly girl only interested in fashion and flirting, because Cornish plays her so earnestly and with so much depth."
- Buzz Sugar