Sylvia
Academy Award-winner Gwyneth Paltrow stars in this powerfully passionate true story of legendary American author and poet Sylvia Plath.
While on a Fulbright grant to England, Sylvia meets Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), a British poet on the verge of international fame. Following a torrid four-month courtship, they marry and embark on an intense relationship. When Ted's susbsequent literaray success and the attentions of admiring women strains the marriage, Sylvia funnels her fury and passion into her work, which begins to flow forth in unstoppable bursts.
This true story of love and tragic passion is "one of the most beautiful films of the year!" (The New York Observer)
Member Reviews
Slightly sanitized biography of a troubled, controversial mind - Superdave
There is a certain type of undergraduate who sees Sylvia Plath as the victim-heroine of a period that lionized talented men but had no place for women of similar gifts, and fortunately this film does not pander to them. Poets rarely receive lavish acclaim or wealth during their lifetimes, and hers was at least equal to her talent and irrespective of her gender. Any reasonably critical reader of her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar can see evidence of serious mental illness, which in Plath's case went largely untreated, and this film chooses to focus more on that aspect of her life than on anti-feminist conspiracy theories. However, the film comes up short of fully showing Plath as the highly complex and contradictory person her contemporaries knew: sexy, seductive yet so harsh and venal in her judgments of men (especially her husband and her father) as to seem man-hating; also manipulative and vain and yet so insecure that she went long periods without writing. She was likely bi-polar and could on occasion be described as downright monstrous, yet the film hollywoodizes Plath into a more conventional 'troubled' melodrama heroine, rather than delving deeper into the brutal reality of the day-to-day life of someone with significant mental illness. This is surprising given that director Christine Jeffs' earlier film on mental illness, Rain, was unstintingly honest. Plath's well known life history is covered in straightforward biopic narrative: her close-distant, love-hate yo-yo relationship with her mother; her famous first suicide attempt and the subsequent year spent in a sanatorium that was the basis for The Bell Jar; her rocky marriage to British poet Ted Hughes that ended because of his infidelity; her prolific period as a celebrated poet and her eventual death by suicide while still young. The excellent period look is established by bleeding out bright color from every scene while giving it an amber tint like old photographs.Sylia: TRUE - Windsor
I have read Syvia Plath's letters and journals and was pleased to see so many realistic presentations of her moods, sulks, whims, and rudeness. A complicated woman, probably bi-polar, indulged and catered to by those she manipulated so successfully .. and she was SO self righteous n her letters.He poetry is over-rated.
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Slightly sanitized biography of a troubled, controversial mind - Superdave
There is a certain type of undergraduate who sees Sylvia Plath as the victim-heroine of a period that lionized talented men but had no place for women of similar gifts, and fortunately this film does not pander to them. Poets rarely receive lavish acclaim ...Sylia: TRUE - Windsor
I have read Syvia Plath's letters and journals and was pleased to see so many realistic presentations of her moods, sulks, whims, and rudeness. A complicated woman, probably bi-polar, indulged and catered to by those she manipulated so successfully .. and ...