Most directors are lucky to make one movie in their lives that moves people beyond words but in my book Jane Campion has made three — An Angel at My Table, The Piano and now Bright Star. When I first saw An Angel at My Table I remember loving it but not completely getting it. It took a couple of viewings. The same could be said for The Piano where we saw Holly Hunter totally break out in an incredibly raw and aching performance. For that film, Campion was deservedly nominated for the best director honors (following her Golden Palm win at Cannes) making her only the second woman ever to receive that honor. And now we have Bright Star, her first film after a six year hiatus. Please check out these comments from Campion about why she took the hiatus and other issues about women and film

I loved Bright Star. I loved the colors, I loved the fact that Campion can write a scene where the main action is a watching a curtain blow in the wind and I am mesmerized. I don’t what it is about that scene but it’s one of the ones I can’t get out of my mind. That’s the thing about her films there are scenes that just stick.

In case you don’t know this by now, Bright Star is the story of the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne played by Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish. This is a tragic love story, supposedly never consummated, but deeply passionate and moving. You feel the aching on both of them but especially on Fanny who has completely lost herself in this sickly poet who will hopefully amount to something. She is stuck as he is, but the rules for women at that time made it much harder to devote herself to a person with really no prospects. A young woman needs to marry to help support her family, yet Fanny cannot give up on Keats.

Jane Campion is a passionate and visionary director. Yet there is a calmness that emanates from the film. Knowing now that Campion practices yoga, I can understand where the calmness comes from. Abbie Cornish is an actress I have been watching for some time, but here she just shines. She is a young woman who knows what she wants and won’t be deterred. The scenes where she learns that Keats has died are devastating, unhinged, raw and aching. This young woman has an incredible talent that will hopefully keep growing.

This is a film from a director at the top of her game. It is deep and soulful and demands that you pay attention to it. The film opens in NY and LA today, wider this Friday and hopefully wider as the award talk continues.