Another wonderful movie in Dartmouth’s Telluride festival lineup. And we learned that it opens at the Nugget next week, which is good news because it sold out for Telluride.
This movie is a love story between young consumptive poet John Keats and his neighbour’s daughter Fanny Brawne. It seems to be the same period as Jane Austen novels – and about the same upper middle class characters. They live in big houses and have dancing lessons. But it is Fanny Prawne who dominates, with forthrightness and wit from the start. While following convention, it is always clear where her feelings lay. She sets the pace right at the opening scene, when she walks into the parlor, and has no problems dispensing with the cutting remarks of their lodger, would-be poet Mr. Brown. This latter is the host of another would-be poet, John Keats, who with no family, no income and no poetry sales, is forced to live off of others.
Like the Austen novels, this is all about money. And the fact that Keats has none is a seemingly insurmountable barrier to any marriage, a fact that all the characters acknowledge. In spite of that, as the story progresses, they all seem to recognize and acquiesce to the special strength of the growing bond between John and Fanny.
The cast is all first rate – no weak links. The lighting is bright and luminous, and the scenery authentic. The pace is measured and deliberate. Every details seems right in place. And be sure to stay through the closing credits to hear again “Ode to a Nightingale”, given special meaning by the story before it.