Let's get this out of the way. There is no sex in the new movie, "Bright Star." No overwrought gropes, hungry kisses or impetuous lovers busting out of their duds to get it on.

No. "Bright Star" is none of that. But, it is one of the most moving, gorgeously-filmed romances Hollywood has seen in years.

Thank you Jane Campion!

Ink pots and quill pens. Stovepipe bonnets and velvet waistcoats. Toss in a young English poet dying of tuberculosis and a fashionista girl next door and "Bright Star" seems just like the kind of chaste, period romance Jane Austen could have written.

Transcending the usual costume drama, however, Campion digs her formidable directing chops into the doomed romance between 19th-century British poet John Keats and his great love, Fanny Brawne.

They met in 1818, when Keats was 23 and Brawne 18. The chance encounter came barely two years before Keats died in Italy at 25 from tuberculosis.

Their intense, short-lived relationship spawned some of Keats' greatest work, including the poem "Bright Star."

Set in the idyllic country lushness of Hampstead Heath, this anti-biopic is told through the eyes of Fanny as she tries to understand the genius who wrote "a thing of beauty is a joy forever."

As "Bright Star" begins, seamstress Fanny (played to perfection by Abbie Cornish) is all about fashion.

Dressed in gorgeous outfits she creates, Fanny is an impeccable fashion plate. She's also smart, confident and unafraid to speak her mind, even to her arrogant Scottish neighbour, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider).

The blustery, pompous writer shares his quarters with Keats (Ben Whishaw). They spend hours writing poetry in the comfort of Brown's stately English home.

When Fanny intrudes upon their writing sessions, Brown gleefully hurls barbs at the party girl and her sewing "talents."

Fanny is far more than meets the eye, however, just as we and Keats discover.

Poetry gets a starring role

At first glance, the frail, pasty poet seems totally disinterested in this luscious-looking creature.

But, Fanny's fascination with the ailing, impoverished poet slowly overtakes her. She sends her little sister out to buy Keats' latest book of poetry. "She wants to make sure he's not an idiot," the child tells the shopkeeper.

Fanny reads it, and is soon under the spell of Keats' words.

When Keats' brother dies from tuberculosis, the love-struck Fanny makes a pillowcase for the dead young man. With surprisingly tenderness, the tough-talking girl hands it to Keats. She tells him she made it for his brother to lay his head on.

In that instant, something palpable ignites between the scrawny, wild-eyed scribe and luminous beauty of Hampstead Heath.

Though they never express their love with anything more than a stolen kiss or lingering caress, the pair fire-up the screen as they read and speak Keats' poetry to one another.

It all sounds very tame by our jaded, "seen it all" standards. But, in an era that limited what people, particularly women, could say or do in public, Keats' ravishing words gave these lovers the freedom to express their true feelings.

"Bright Star's" cinematography, costumes and production design are exquisite. Campion's selections from Keats' poetry are also utterly in tune with the slow pang of emotion that builds on screen.

"Bright Star's" greatest achievement, however, lies in Campion's casting.

Little known in North America, Cornish and Whishaw had never met. That real-life foreignness to one another added something special to their "Bright Star" performances.

Cornish and Whishaw infuse their chaste characters with a passion and sensuous vitality that gives their affair surprising modernity.

Just like "The Piano," which earned Campion a 1994 Oscar win for Best Screenplay and a nomination for Best Director, she deposits her stars in an era long gone by. Yet, this 19th-century world of manor houses and rambling gardens they inhabit feels as real and lived in as our own.

"Bright Star's" beautiful, electric stillness might not be a big draw for the blockbuster crowd. But, its welcome lack of store-bought sap makes "Bright Star's" tragic outcome even more powerful when it comes.

Three stars out of four