Jane Campion returns with her first feature in six years, the gorgeously romantic, sweeping love story [Bright Star]. Campion tells the tale of the brief but intense affair between Romantic poet John Keats and seamstress Fanny Brawne. Campion focuses her camera on a passionate woman constrained by the rigorous moral and social code of her time, much like she did in her Palme d’Or-winning [The Piano]. Imbued with a sense of independence from making fashionable clothing, the proud Fanny becomes involved with the more demure Keats after she buys a volume of his work and learns of how he cares for his ailing brother. By the time the two truly fall in love, it is with tragedy brewing. Graceful and deliberately paced, the simmering sensuality between the pair transcends period drama convention to allow the emotion and motivations of the lovers to emerge. The words that Keats was inspired to write are woven throughout the film, giving it a melancholy and literary tone reflective of its source material.