THE prestige movie sea son gets off to a beauti fully crafted start with Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” which examines the brief adult life of Romantic poet John Keats through the eyes of his great love, Fanny Brawne.
Brawne, known for her fashion sense and her sewing skill, was 18 when Keats, 23, moved next door to the London home she shared with her widowed mother and two younger siblings in 1818.
Keats, who would not be recognized as one of the greats (he wrote “Ode to a Grecian Urn”) until decades after his premature death, was struggling with money, bad reviews, and poor health.
It was Fanny’s attention to his dying younger brother that prompted the shy Keats to offer to teach her to appreciate poetry, which she finds “a strain to work out.”
He counsels a less intellectual approach and gradually becomes smitten by the headstrong young woman.
The relationship was opposed by Fanny’s mother (Kerry Fox) — and more adamantly by Keats’ burly and protective roommate, well played by American actor Paul Schneider (“Lars and the Real Girl”).
Though Keats and Fanny were unofficially engaged, it was a relationship that was never consummated; we see brief kisses, hand-holding and poetry reading.
The pallid Keats of British actor Ben Whishaw (one of the Bob Dylans in “I’m Not There”) is something of an ethereal figure. But Fanny is a breakthrough role for Abbie Cornish, a beautiful Australian perhaps best known in the US for her role in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.”
It’s her full-blooded performance, and the flawlessly realized period setting, that will make “Bright Star” catnip for the art-house crowd. lou.lumenick@nypost.com