Sylvia Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Life was too small to contain her...
Talented but plagued by her owns demons Sylvia Plath's early relationship with husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, is dominated by Ted's ambition and success. In the early years of their marriage Sylvia lacks inspiration and increasingly senses Ted's infidelity. The unspoken question is whether Ted's extra-marital affairs are the result of Sylvia's own insecurities or whether Sylvia's deepening depression is exacerbated by her husbands philandering. It is only towards the end, when they are separated, that Sylvia is able to truly explore the dark depths of her soul and write the searingly brilliant poetry that earned her fame.
| Gwyneth Paltrow | Sylvia Plath |
| Daniel Craig | Ted Hughes |
| Jared Harris | Al Alvarez |
| Blythe Danner | Aurelia Plath |
| Michael Gambon | Professor Thomas |
| Amira Casar | Assia Wevill |
| Andrew Havill | David Wevill |
| Lucy Davenport | Doreen |
| Liddy Holloway | Martha Bergstrom |
| David Birkin | Morecambe |
| Alison Bruce | Elizabeth |
| Julian Firth | James Michie |
| Jeremy Fowlds | Mr. Robinson |
| Michael Mears | Charles Langridge |
| Anthony Strachan | Michael Boddy |
| Christine Jeffs |
6.10 out of 10 (2292 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Life imitating art... or just art?
posted on 08 Jul 2009So intense ... Ms. Paltrow does not let your eye leave her from the moment she enters the frame... moment by moment she projects her feelings thoughts... almost painful to watch at times... you almost feel like you are watching Paltrow herself unravel on screen (boat on the ocean. I love Plath and I love Paltrow as Plath... she is heartbreaking and haunting just like the poetry the real Sylvia wrote. She unlike most actresses becomes a character and she became Sylvia Plath.
A Beautiful Mind; a tortured genius - Paltrow & Craig excel
posted on 28 Jun 2009SYLVIA (2003) *** Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Jared Harris, Blythe Danner, Michael Gambon , Amira Casar, Andrew Havill.Paltrow excels in the complicatedly difficult interpretation of the tragic genius that was Sylvia Plath in this excellent yet leadenly paced biopic of the acclaimed poet/author whose manic depressive state led to her successful suicide after several failed attempts but not before her stormy marriage to the equally successful poet Ted Hughes (Craig in an understated yet powerful turn) who attempted to quell her suspicious mind despite his weaknesses including alcohol and womanizing. (Dir: Christine Jeffs)
Gweneth Paltrow's the reason to see this less than exciting account of the short life of poet Sylvia Plath.
posted on 20 Jun 2009I generally give high marks to good movies based on real people. Examples are "Beautiful Mind" and "Longitude." This movie, "Sylvia", is based on a real person, poet Sylvia Plath, but it certainly is not one of my favorites. Paltrow has created a wonderful character but she and her life are not terribly interesting. As I watched it I thought, "How can one expect to go through life simply wanting to write poetry?" It seems very insignificant, compared to careers that invent things, or help humanity in various ways. So, the fact that Plath was mostly a mediocre poet, greatly overshadowed by her husband's writings, is not of great interest to me. It was interesting to see Paltrow's real mother, Blythe Danner, play Sylvia's mother in the movie. It was also good to the Michael Gambon in a small but significant role.SPOILERS. Sylvia and Ted Hughes had a torrid relationship, and were married rather quickly and moved from England to the Northeastern USA. Sylvia wrote mediocre poetry that often received mixed or poor reviews, and she taught high school, while Ted was receiving rave reviews. Sylvia was not only mediocre, but she didn't realize that she was. Ted, unable to write in the USA, moved them back to England. His wandering eye resulted in an affair, which tore up their marriage after the second child arrived, but inspired passion in Sylvia that turned her into a better poet. They tried to reconcile much later, but he had gotten his mistress pregnant and wouldn't agree to quit seeing her. Despondent Sylvia, in her 30s, sealed off her children's bedroom door to protect them while they slept, and she killed herself with gas from the kitchen stove. After her death, her book received great reviews and became a best-seller. It is ironic that the very thing which turned her into a superb poet also killed her.
A two-dimensional portrayal
posted on 29 Apr 2009I just saw Sylvia and am shocked and disappointed by the flat, two-dimensional portrayal of Sylvia Plath. She is portrayed as a clairvoyant crazy person who mysteriously divines her husband's infidelities and then flies into scary unpredictable rages. A few years ago, her journals were published and anyone who reads them can see for themselves the complexity of her life and yes, the injustices she suffered under a social system that no woman, at least in the US, would put up with today. This is a biased portrayal clearly favoring her British husband. This movie was written by a British man and produced by the BBC. What a surprise!
A Dull Take on Plath-as-Zombie
posted on 24 Mar 2009***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** After being forewarned by the teenager selling tickets to "Sylvia"--"I hope you like 'depressing', 'cause this is REALLY depressing" ("Oh, I do, I do," I reassured him)--I spent the next 2 hours completely alone in the theater, which was somehow appropriate...Paltrow was competent, Daniel Craig as Ted was appropriately brooding and charismatic. That said, I found the film to be little more than a series of mainly gloomy vignettes rather than a more accurately energetic glimpse into her actual life.From everything I've read about Plath (all of her works, plus over 10 critical and/or biographical books), the woman was a crackling force of both manic and depressive energy--this film, on the other hand, almost completely ignores the manic life (and death) force in favor of a pervasive listlessness. Even the scenes that we know from Plath's journals happened in real-life are dulled-down here: Plath's bang-smash account of her sexually-charged initial meeting with Hughes, for instance, which we know resulted in tooth-marks on Hughes' face and his snatching her hair-band, is rendered as little more than a fairly polite dance and kiss in the movie--you get little sense of the urgency and excitement of their attraction. Another scene, rendered far more cinematically in Plath's journals and in Hughes' poem "Chaucer", is her enchantment of the local cows with her recitation of The Wife of Bath's Tale---in reality, the cows apparently gathered around her as she spoke, entranced by her voice, and Ted had to literally drive them away. When I read THEIR accounts, I could feel the magic of the odd situation; in the movie, though, Plath speaks a few lines to watching cows as she and Ted row past them on the river. Ho-hum.While the two lived in Boston, Plath not only taught at Smith, but later entered weekly analysis, worked at a local mental hospital because Ted wouldn't get a job, and hung out with fellow poets at Lowell's weekly workshop, then got drunk with Anne Sexton, for one, afterwards. Again, that's all pretty darn cinematic; but in the movie, the Boston life consists primarily of a few seconds of Plath droning on before a class or two, then a scene of women gathering around Hughes after a reading. Yes, they do have a fight after Sylvia asks Ted if he f***ed (the movie's word) one woman; but her own written account of the scene was rather wild, with thrown glasses, her "getting hit" and seeing stars, etc., rather than the bland conversational incarnation of the incident that shows up here.In London and Devon, too: In actuality, up 'til near the end, Plath was constantly in motion: setting up households, sending their work out, going to literary events, having babies, entertaining a myriad of friends and family and neighbors. Dido Merwin and Olwyn Hughes have both left testaments to Sylvia's sometime-hostility on occasion; Plath's own friends have left warmer accounts. Whatever the case, she was interacting with others, for better and worse, and much more interestingly than in this movie, wherein she mainly mopes around the house in a series of grim solitary poses. (PLEASE, I feel like begging, show her getting mad at Olwyn for smoking, or angrily striding out onto the moors after an argument at Ted's family's house, or yelling at Ted about the damn rabbit traps or his Ouija-predicted fame, or expressing her frustration at her mother's annoying visit. ANYTHING to portray an interesting, REAL person and to relieve the monotony of all the pseudo-artsy posing that goes on in the film.)In short, this movie sucks every bit of life out of Plath, portraying her as a zombie-like character almost from the get-go, when in fact we know from reading her own words that there was actually a thinking, feeling, LIVING person on the premises up until the very end.
Why do people hate this movie?
posted on 06 Feb 2009Great movie about the poet as victim. Plath is obviously so superiour as poet and writer to Ted Hughes. Gwyneth Paltrow does it well as Sylvia, although Paltrow is so damned hot and this might not have been the energy Sylvia Plath contained. Also I think the sex-scenes are degrading unless one is going to the movies with a potential girlfriend. Anyway, this is the greatest portrait I have seen of a poet. Maybe she wasn't like that at all. I don't know. But the movie really pays respect to her poems. Its obvious that the filmmakers know how awesome Plath is. And take my word for it: She is awesome. It is some of the most powerful poetry of the post-world war II era. Essential viewing for all Kafka-fans. 8/10.
kitchen sink
posted on 03 Sep 2008having never really read any of Plaths work, i was somewhat dubious of watching this movie, especially with gwyneth 'TAKE ME SERIOUS!' Paltrow.i was astonished, the undertones of this movie made great sense, poets best steer clear of this because they do get criticised somewhat.basically Plath was unfortunately damaged goods since the advent of her fathers death. trying to kill herself twice in the past tense.some of you may disagree with me, but i really believe that Plath was making up Hughes' infidelity.the scene where Plath is burning documents and keeps cutting to hughes and aerial having sex, i believe this was a delusion from Plath. not once did Hughes admit to the affair.you may say what about when Hughes told Plath about aerial being pregnant? another delusion. when Plath asks Gambon's character for a stamp, not once does he mention about a man visiting her.if you were to watch the movie in this context, i'm sure some may agree.all in all a great film. Paltrow has never been better, and the ever reliable Craig proves just what a stellar actor he is.a must-
One problem: it's not a film about the poet
posted on 06 Aug 2008The acting is not awful. Both Paltrow and Craig did quite a good job with their acting. The main problem of this film is that it did almost nothing to describe Plath's literary work or how her personal life affected her writing. The movie itself is basically a portrait of a failing marriage--the turbulent relationship between the couple and the husband's infidelity.One must understand that it is a challenge to make a biographical film on an artist (actor, writer, musician, or painter). This is because that not only is that artist being famous for his/her achievement in a special field, but also for his/her dramatic personal life. Here, the film focused heavily on Plath's unsuccessful marriage and a little on her poetry or her novel. Even the portrayal of the marriage is too one-sided. Obviously, Plath's loyal friends would have agreed with the film's depiction. Yet, Ted Hugh and his family might have some objections.I give this film 6/10. It is not a bad film. It is just not a film about a poet.
Simple, concentrates on Plath's relationship with Ted Hughes
posted on 29 Jul 2008Surprisingly intricate, this film revolves more around the personal life of poet Sylvia Plath than delving into the creation of her works. I cannot help but comparing this film with "The Hours", where Nicole Kidman dishes out the performance of her life as Virginia Woolf; the films are, however, very different in style and implementation. This film largely takes on Plath's life though her relationship with Ted Hughes, a well-known and respected poet of his day. His constant infidelities with different women seems to have shattered Plath and subsequently their family. Remarkable cinematography and notable acting by Palthrow and Craig.
spoilers,........ great to look at
posted on 25 Jul 2008Beautiful: people, lighting, sets, locations, film exposure, ALL that look stuff was spot on. Too bad I had less of an idea who these people were after the flick that before it started. I read some of Ted and Sylvia's poetry after watching the film and that really underscored the lack of depth, as the few lines i read spoke volumes. Writing is important to this type of film, and this screen play was lacking. The actors tried, no fault there. I felt like I was somehow watching a G rated Disney effort when gut level was in order. I felt bad for the cast and crew because they wanted to get it right, but must know they missed. Art is very often hard to make, and the filmakers were trying to not only make art, but desribe artists and show art in process and feel. Very ambitious, but it was all undermined by a basic lack of a meatyness of spirit. 6/10
Interesting film portraying life of a demented soul
posted on 11 Jun 2008I've took up an interest in Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes after reading the latter's 'Birthday Letters' for a module in college. If this film speaks true, and considering that it is a BBC production, I'd assume it's as close to the life of Plath as it can be. An excellent filmed picture, the emotions were very real and Paltrow was so passionate in the role, you could almost feel her pain and sufferings through those eyes of hers. Craig was another actor worthy of mention, although he could be less stiff with the movements.All in all, a film worth catching, and just for the record, I think Hughes is a sod for cheating on his wife.Rating: B+
Given the subject matter, one of the best biopics ever made
posted on 01 Jun 2008Unless you know nothing about Plath, failed to view the poster/see the trailer or stumbled into the screening by mistake, you obviously know that this film will be a tough ride!Considering the size of the literary "Plath analysis" industry, any film made about her difficult life will be open to severe criticism. If you can go beyond such blinkered views, this film is FIRST RATE - an excellent attempt to capture a difficult relationship in under two hours. The cinematography is spot on, the costumes and sets are convincing and the acting superb. It's a very heart rending experience: it should be.
Not nearly as ghastly as the reviews make out...
posted on 30 Apr 2008I saw Sylvia at a BAFTA screening in London last Friday night and must say that overall I enjoyed it - at least enjoyed in so much as I thought it handled a range of difficult themes in a sensitive yet not sentimental manner whilst retaining the sense of story so essential to holding the audiences' attention.What struck me most as the credits rolled was that this did not seem to be the same film that has been on the receiving end of so much vitriol and negativity at the hand of certain critics (with the result that some reviews are now nothing more than reviews of reviews without seemingly having seen the film!).Some very good acting is on show here. Yes Gwyneth does a very good job, but so does Daniel Craig and the rest of the cast (especially the little girl - my daughter - who plays Frieda Hughes... very proud dad!). I recognise that it is a piece of history fraught with emotion, claim and counter-claim, but it is portrayed in a manner that if not absolutely even-handed is at least an attempt at "walking the tightrope" of the protagonists relationship.
Why are these people so sad?
posted on 18 Apr 2008The biggest failing of this movie for me was that it never sufficiently explains why these two
talented, beautiful people spent most of their time acting tortured. There was endless
suffering depicted on screen but I couldn't empathize with it because it all seemed self- inflicted. Not entertaining. Not enlightening.Maybe you have to have read or known Sylvia Plath to appreciate the movie. But if I were any
living relative of hers I wouldn't exactly consider the film a tribute.
Syvia..this is your boring life.
posted on 18 Feb 2008Never before have I sat through a film whos musical score was such a distraction as with TalkCinema's viewing this week of Sylvia. It bothered me so much that I waited impatiently through the credits to see who the guilty party was in an effort to boycott the rest of his filmography. With its overpowering piano solos, strong violin overtures, and high pitch strings, I felt that composer Garbiel Yared would be better suited scoring a horror film than a fact based biography of such a strong American woman. Not that the movie would be in my top ten despite its continued musical annoyances. In fact, I could not help wondering why Director Christine Jeffs thought the story was so interesting that she needed to seek BBC financing in order to film it. There is no argument that Sylvia Plath, was an important figure in American poetic history, however, her story was no more exciting than that of most of my family members and neighbours. Girl falls in love, girl gets married and moves to America, girl plays second fiddle to husband and continues to fight with his infidelity. Girl then moves back to England, kills herself and becomes famous. Ho-hum. Show me a movie where the female lead has success both running her family while she continues with her work passion even after a cheating husband leaves, and I would be more interested. Oh yeah, I guess I just described the plot of Erin Brockovich.
I cannot argue that the acting in the movie was top rate, and that even more makes for a disappointing result. Gwyneth Paltrow does her best with a boring character and Daniel Craig as the womanizing husband channels more of his Road To Perdition performance than his Lara Croft: Tomb Raider persona.
I also appreciated the look to the film. The colour schemes were vibrantly mesmerizing. If I wasn't noticing the red dress Sylvia was wearing when she first met Ted Hughes, I was cringing at the oil based paint used in each of the English rooms (which reminded me of how ‘waxy' my parents old home used be).
I know that my feelings for this film will put me in the minority. Sylvia has already had limited success in New York and Los Angeles and even stingy Entertainment Weekly gave the film an ‘A-‘, using such descriptive words as ‘dazzling' and referring to Paltrows role as her ‘richest since Shakespeare in Love'.
So to you American history and poetry lovers, I apologize for just not getting it. However, for you casual movie goers, do not be swayed into thinking that because a movie is set in ole England and deals with the art of poetry that it should be given special consideration and that its flaws should be overlooked. If that was the case, I can type up a script for ‘There Once Was A Man From Nantucket', and I can provide the draft to everyone before the next TalkCinema screening. P.S. One of the most anticipated films in 2004 is Troy, directed by Wolfgang Peterson and starring a multi-talented cast including Brad Pitt, Julie Christie and Orlando Bloom. I have learned that Gabriel Yared, is composing the musical score for this blockbuster epic, and after sitting through Sylvia, I can only hope that Paris in 1193 B.C. was a quiet city.
I wept.
posted on 31 Jan 2008I wept because this movie is so bad. I could literally feel my manliness draining from my body to hear some of the lines. I remember thinking to myself, "Now where are those cyanide tablets." Don't be a fool, go armed into the theater. Be polite, and remember to bring a silencer so you don't disturb the other artists when you put yourself out of your misery. Since IMDB wants me to have ten lines in my comment, I'll bring up another point. The script isn't even poetic. It's like the script writers from a soap opera decided to come up with a story and sat up all night to write it.
On the plus side, there is a hint of nudity. One good thing about the movie, is that the music is a dead give away for what we're supposed to be feeling. When she tells you you just didn't understand the subtleties of the movie, you can bluff intelligently.
Frustrated Poetess on the Cusp of "The Feminine Mystique"
posted on 13 Jan 2008"Sylvia" is not quite just a slow, straightforward bio-pic of poet Sylvia Plath. While screenwriter John Brownlow has a long background in TV documentaries, director Christine Jeffs has previously made a young woman's mental disquiet dreamily visual in the superb New Zealand film "Rain."She has her "Rain" cinematographer John Toon bathe the entire film in a nostalgia-tinged amber glow, like the extended flashbacks to the young lovers in the Australian film "Innocence." I think the point is to determinedly place Plath and her husband poet Ted Hughes into their specific time at the cusp before "The Feminine Mystique" put a name to Plath's frustrations and contradictions as a Fulbright scholar - experimental poet turned wife and mother who ultimately turned on herself. ("Mona Lisa's Smile" with Julia Roberts will evidently be dealing with a parallel time and place in a much more Hollywood interpretation.) As played alternatively languid and aggressive by Gwyneth Paltrow and a Byronic Daniel Craig, they are an actively sensual couple, but notably not Bohemian. They are part of an intellectual but not counter-cultural set.
While they are competing for editors' accolades and print space, she's setting her hair, arranging her pearls and cleaning house, like a proper Smith graduate of the time who is perfectly at home visiting her Boston mother (played by real-life mom Blythe Danner) and amidst the books of her late bee scholar father (My friend the PhD in English tells me that the original film title of "The Bee-Keeper's Daughter" would have been fraught with much more significance about Plath's obsessions.) Hughes celebrates his first big break by asking her to marry him and kids follow one after the other; when they need money he looks to write a children's series for the BBC. Yes, she gets more and more difficult and paranoid, but he is having affairs (and another child) as he attracts more fawning women acolytes. An earlier suicide effort is referenced a couple of times yet her increasingly heightened mental imbalance as shown here could be post-partum depressions or a Laingian response that insanity is the only rational response to an insane, unfair world. (The film does not seem to side with her loyalist cult which Margaret Atwood satirizes in "The Blind Assassin").It is always difficult to show a writer at work, but I would have liked to hear more of her poetry than a few passing sentences. Gabriel Yared's music is lovely and unsentimental.
Sylvia who?
posted on 24 Dec 2007"Sylvia" drags through long, tedious, plaintive gulps of the life of poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) in a self-involved attempt to wallow in the angst, woe, and misery of a relatively obscure writer. Having never heard of Plath before, I was able to learn more about her in 10 minutes on the Internet than in 100 minutes of Paltrow's sitting around looking wan and hopeless. As films about artists on the verge of madness go - and there are plenty - this one is quite ordinary. Recommended only for those curious about the life of Sylvia Plath, Paltrow fans, and the like. (C+)
Just ok flick from a Plath-fan perspective
posted on 28 Nov 2007To say the least, I was not impressed. Others have commented already on the distracting musical score, lack of sufficient information for non-Plath fans (i.e., the person sitting next to the Plath-fan!), uninteresting and quite common marriage problems, etc., etc. Despite Paltrow's interesting portrayal of Plath and cinematographic quality, the film did not explore the complexities of Plath by any means to explain the tagline of "Life was too small to contain her." Even a Plath-fan can't get that impression from the film. Aside from which, the title change from "Ted and Sylvia" to just "Sylvia" was not justified by the screenplay. The impact of not being permitted to use more of Plath's poetry throughout the film is significant. It is completely reasonable for non-Plath fans to give a low score to the film, but thoroughly disappointing to be a Plath-fan and have to give it a low score of 5.0/10.0. Re: Oscars - who cares? I would guess that if Sissy Spacik got nominated for "In the Bedroom", then Gwyneth is a shoe-in for this year.
Husband cheats, wife confronts him, husband gets angry and defensive, wife apologizes...
posted on 26 Jul 2009Somehow, I think there's probably much more to the life story of suicidal poetess Sylvia Plath than just her unsatisfying marriage to gad-about poet Ted Hughes. However, few films have managed to capture the feelings of empty betrayal in a marriage as well as this one--and also be a worthy cinematic story about two writers. Detailing the creative writing process on the screen has always been difficult for filmmakers of any era, but "Sylvia" is distinct and astute. It doesn't romanticize the process of writing heavy-going emotional poetry, nor does it sentimentalize the after effects. The film isn't weighed down by nostalgia or a foreboding intensity, yet it looks handsomely chilly. The paranoia of a cheated-on spouse isn't fresh subject matter, and perhaps too much of the movie has Plath feeling victimized at home without a clue as to how she should proceed in her marriage, but the acting is quite good and the sad heart of this piece stays with you for a long while. *** from ****