The word "romantic," as applied to 19th century British poets and not 20th century American comedies, is rooted in the imagination. While celebrating nature and untamed emotion, poets such as Wordsworth were bound by social conventions.

Perhaps the most notable thing about "Bright Star," Jane Campion's limpid account of the love affair between poet John Keats and free-thinker Fanny Brawne, is how chaste it is. There are no sex scenes to appease modern moviegoers' expectations. The passion resides in the lovers' eyes and in the lines of poetry that Keats meticulously crafts in the last years of his short life.

In 1818, at age 23, angelic Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his churlish cohort Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) move to the English countryside to write. Living with her family in the adjoining house is Fanny (Abbie Cornish), a headstrong girl who designs her clothes and is intrigued by the colorful new tenants.

Brown tries to shoo her away as a nuisance, but Keats is flattered by her interest in his poems, which she buys at the local bookstore and struggles to understand.

Much walking in the woods ensues, sometimes accompanied by Fanny's precocious kid sister Toots (Edie Martin, functioning much like Anna Paquin in Campion's "The Piano").

What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature.

But the young poet is dying: figuratively, from the sting of criticism by the literary establishment; and literally, from tuberculosis, like his brother before him.

After Keats packs for Rome to escape both threats, the movie comes close to the heaving-bosom melodrama we now associate with "romance"; yet much of the affair transpires in letters and thus doesn't satisfy us emotionally.

Yet on its own terms, the film is exquisite. Too ethereal for entertainment and too elusive for history, "Bright Star" is best appreciated as a beautiful, shining object, just out of reach.