Bright Star (PG)

Sonnets and bonnets to sit and savour, this proves that a chaste romance needn't lack passion or poetry

Director: Jane Campion
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
UK/Australia/France, 2009, 2 hours

Fri 26 February 8.00pm Clungunford Parish Hall
Sat 27 7.30pm Chapel Lawn Village Hall & Moccas Village Hall
Mon 1 March 7.30pm Church Stretton School
Fri 5 March 7.30pm Bodenham Parish Hall
Mon 8 March 7.30pm Aston on Clun Village Hall
Thur 11 March 7.30pm Gorsley Village Hall
Fri 12 March 7.30pm Cardington Village Hall & Ewyas Harold Memorial Hall

Finely crafted, terrifically well performed and subtly told tale about the forever-stalled relationship between John Keats and his Hampstead neighbour, Fanny Brawne whom, through poverty, he was unable to marry. Refreshingly, the film is free of the hysterics so often associated with films about writers and deftly avoids the distractions that plague so many British period pieces. It's also remarkable for its lightness of touch. Campion chooses to concentrate on small gestures, moments and looks that represent her characters' growing love and frustration. Not so much a biopic as a well-focused, deeply affecting portrait of the poet and his muse at a particular time.