New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Jane Campion.
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Thomas Sangster, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Description: In 1818 London, John Keats shares lodgings with longtime friend, Charles Brown. The building is spacious so Brown rents out half of Wentworth Place to widow Mrs Brawne and her brood: 18-year-old Fanny, 14-year-old Sam and nine-year-old Margaret. Once Fanny immerses herself in Keats' words, she is uncontrollably drawn to the poet and the pair embark on a tempestuous affair.
Country: UK/AUSTRALIA/FR/US. 2009. 119mins
Tragic: Ben Whishaw (Keats) and Abbie Cornish (Brawne)
There is a sequence in Jane Campion’s fine-looking film about the poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, the love of his short life, when the pair trade stanzas from La Belle Dame Sans Mercy in a darkened bedroom. They are both fully clothed but it is the moment they, or at least the film, come nearest to sex.
Though by no means old-fashioned and in some ways thoroughly modern, this telling of a tragic story does not play too many tricks with history and relies on the extant letters to forge its screenplay. Keats’s to Fanny were mostly burnt but Fanny’s to Keats were not.
We know that the two neighbours in the Hampstead of the early 19th century — he a great but largely unrecognised poet, she a young woman who at first seemed to him like a silly clotheshorse — became deeply enamoured. And Campion, with the aid of fine performances from Ben Whishaw and the Australian actress Abbie Cornish, signals this without pushing sex at us.
Cornish, in particular, gives her character an edge that makes Fanny memorable as a thoroughly modern woman trapped in a time when to be so aware was not easy. Whishaw is a mite less triumphantly right for his part but never dull.
When Keats goes to Italy to ward off tuberculosis, you get a real sense of mutual loss. The pair never met again and perhaps had a premonition that this would be so.
Otherwise, this well-mounted, carefully directed film, using as much of the poetry as it can, just escapes the charge of looking like an unknown Jane Austen period. It is too intelligent for that — but we are so used to such things that the parallels inevitably come to mind.
Gala screening tonight 7pm at Odeon Leicester Square; further screenings tomorrow 4pm and Wednesday 1pm at Vue West End. Information: www.bfi.org.uk
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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