Beyond the cruel, unfathomable tragedies of wasted talent in the early deaths of Shelley (29), two Brontë sisters at 29 and 30, respectively, Schubert (31), Mozart (35), Lord Byron (36), Mendelssohn (39), there is the demise of John Keats... at 25.

Everything is compressed in that brief life, including the mere months of Keats' courtship of Fanny Brawne, a neighbor in Hampstead where he lived with a close friend and benefactor, Charles Armitage Brown. Jane Campion's "Bright Star" takes that final phase of Keats' life and creates a miniature epic from it.

This being the early 19th century (and just a decade and a half before Queen Victoria began her reign), the apparently chaste affair created somewhat of a scandal. Campion's strangely affecting, high-toned soap opera focuses only on the overheated relationship between the two, something in stark contrast with the only entry in Fanny's diary: "Mr. Keats has left Hampstead."

"Bright Star" is not a documentary (thank goodness) and it takes many obvious liberties with the story - Fanny's saintly mother, Brown's unceasingly brutish behavior (without any credit for his historic role in saving most of Keats' writing), Fanny's "liberated" part in the relationship, and so on - but it works, and also acts as a grand conduit for Keats' poetry, quite without Masterpiece Theater pretentions.

"Bright Star" works, but almost in spite of itself. It's claustrophobic in its relentless closeups of the lovers, stays dangerously close to becoming a steady downer with the constant presence and threat of separation, illness and death. But it does work because of Campion's unsentimental, uncynical writing, Greig Fraser's glorious cinematography, and the tremendous cast.

Having a young, unknown, and Australian actress for the role of echt-English Fanny was a gamble... that paid off. Abbie Cornish is pretty much on-camera for two hours, and she manages to hold interest: Keats' and the audience's. Ben Whishaw is Keats, making the enervated, passive hero remain interesting and appealing.

There is only one semi-humorous reference to bad reviews for Keats' poems, but there is something in Whishaw's creation of the character that hints at the resentment (and paranoia?) reflected on his tombstone in Rome, written by Brown: "Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water. This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone."

Paul Schneider (now seen in the new TV series "Parks and Recreation") is Brown, and he could have the whole film be about him. He shifts effortlessly from shouting to petulance, possessiveness to genuine caring, callousness to magnanimity. A brave, unflinching performance of man presented as an anti-hero.

Campion might have erred in creating a saintly Mrs. Brawne, Fanny's beatific mother, but Kerry Fox makes her come alive. Look for Fox as Hannah Maynard in Hans-Christian Schmid's upcoming "Storm."

Fanny's young brother and sister are played by Thomas Sangster and Edie Martin. If you take nothing else away from "Bright Star," there will be Edie's redheaded Toots on a field of heather - as heartwarming a vision as you will ever see.