Customer Reviews
A disservice to Sylvia - By: Alma, 18 Jan 2008 
I'd have given this movie 3 stars if it weren't for the brilliant performances of its cast. Despite an unforgettable portrayal from Gwyneth Paltrow of a haunted, tormented soul in a performance that is almost disturbing, the film glossed over Sylvia Plath's relationship to her art while focusing mainly on her relationship to her husband, poet Ted Hughes.
The movie version showed collaboration between the two poets only during their courtship phase, with Sylvia losing touch with her art shortly after her marriage. However, biographies of Sylvia stress how, for several years during her marriage, & before its collapse, there had been a period of productivity & fruitful collaboration between her & her poet husband, where they both helped, encouraged & inspired one another. The relationship the-movie-Sylvia had with her poetry seemed marginal, & after her marriage, nearly non-existent.
Was it that the film-makers, with eyes on the box-office, feared to "alienate" their average customers with any emphasis on poetry, so they decided to flatten out the story, believing that focusing on her mental disturbance & putting "that bit about art" on the backburner would sell better? Or was it simply that Hollywood is completely out of its depth whenever there is any depth to be dealt with?
So, the-movie-Sylvia was this deeply disturbed woman, jealous of nearly everything her husband did, & her own relationship with poetry & her work was skimmed over & presented in a most superficial manner. Daniel Craig's performance was sophisticated, leaning more towards the portrait of an estranged husband rather than a womanizing scoundrel. Other supporting cast were excellent.
If viewers didn't know much about Sylvia Plath, the impression they would get from this movie would be that she was a mentallly disturbed soul, but not a serious artist. A sad distortion, with the performance of its cast as its only saving grace.
The Colossus - By: Leeloo, 14 Dec 2006 
There are many differing opinions on the marriage of Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath & ultimately the makers of `Sylvia' are not going to please everybody. However, the film was not weighted to either Plath's or Hughes' point of view, holding them both up as great poets who had a great connection, however positive or detrimental that might have been. The relationship between Plath & her mother is also beautifully explored, as is the relationship between Plath & poetry. This is not just about the marriage of Ted & Sylvia.
The casting is magnificent. Both Paltrow & Craig give superb performances & the supporting cast are equallly commendable. The film is beautifully presented alll round. I loved the use of the colours red & blue to indicate different moods (as in Hughes' poem `Red'). The attention to detail (drawind from both Plath's & Hughes' poetry) is astounding.
`Sylvia' is ambitious in what it attempts to convey but I'm not sure the entire audience get the point. I only wish there had been more poetry in it. Watch with an open mind & a hankie.
A wonderful film.
A surprising success - By: duirsgrove, 14 Nov 2005 I feel compelled to redress the amount of criticism this film has ensued since it's release. Perhaps being so disturbing in content it draws people to take character sides or to find fault with technicalities, yet if you take it as a seperate entity, a peice of film making, aside from the Ted & Sylvia that are public images it's actuallly very well done.
If you come at it wanting a pre defined angle then you'll either be enamoured & rejoicing over it or spitting at the injustice. If you want to have an opinion on either author, then read the books they wrote, a film cannot cover their input into literature significantly & inevitably takes a personal line, from what information remains available (questionable on both accounts with the destruction of various parts of her work & the medication angle)
I found it very similar in theme to the self-autobiographical Bell Jar (her only adult novel) perhaps slighly disapointingly for the ease of that option, & couldn't quite say who came off best or worst out of the film version. Can it be doubted the acting pedigree of the two protaginists?, Paltrow is surprisingly well cast & Daniel Craig is now finallly getting more attention (Layer Cake/Bond). The conveyance of the mental state of Sylvia at various key moments of her life, both requesting sympathy, concern & an element of anger - & Ted's role in creation (real or imagined) or endurance of it make it very emotive. It allludes more disturbingly than it demonstrates if you can look into it - how many films do that nowadays, we are trained to receive images without thought at alll.
Films inspire you to want to learn more about a subject or person & to leave you after a journey of emotions & discovery wanting to still know more. So ok it has the lighting, the names & the budget, but how can anyone reallly experience that of those two people in truth other than taking this as part of the evidence & working out how that fits in somehow. Not a feminist film in any way it shows flawed characters who perhaps ultimately brought about very real, combined & manifested love & pain, issues familiar to most people. If we find fault with the film we do so with Plaths own work ultimately. If you want history, scenery, imagery, a human element - a relatable picture then this is it.
Emotional - By: A. Pitts, 24 Aug 2005 I've read a lot about Sylvia Plath & I was reallly looking forward to watching this film. In the end I was almost disappointed. Plath seemed to be portrayed as a spoilt, jealous wife & I found it annoying that Ted seemed to come off much better than she did.
It's definitly worth watching though, although very emotional, so probably best not to watch it if you're having a bad day.
What did you think of the words? - By: P. Bryant, 05 Jun 2005 
The facts of the matter of Ted & Sylvia are well known, this movie presents them soberly, there are no cranky theories on offer (she may be the only American celebrity the CIA did not murder). On the surface what happened is banal, a marriage which went quickly wrong, & her left with two little kids. If we glance back through time 40 years we will find "Poor Cow" tells the same story. That was fiction, this story is not. But the genre known as the biopic tends towards the cartoon (Ah, Wilde, let me introduce you to my friend Whistler. I'm sure you'll find him most amusing... So, Oliver Cromwell, we meet at last.) & this portrait of Sylvia Plath in pre-feminist, pre-swinging 60s, pre-rock, pre-nearly everything late 1950s England, trapped like a bird in a house flying bang into the windows time & again trying painfully to escape, veers close to pure caricature.
Sample dialogue :
Sylvia : How was your walk?
Ted: Good. I got a poem. A good one.
Sylvia: I'm dried up.
Ted: Cause you've got nothing to say.
Sylvia: I'm no good.
Ted: You make great cakes.
Cue great offstage feminist moaning & gnashing. Then Ted says some useful blokeish things - "There's no secret to it (writing poetry - they never talk about anything else), you just have to pick a subject & stick your head into it." Sylvia retorts : "You go out for a bike ride & come back with an epic in hexameters - I sit down to write, I get a bake sale." A little later, on their honeymoon, they're in a dinghy rowing in the sea when Ted suddenly realises - he's out of his depth! ("the tide's dragging us out - I can't get us back in... people drown like this...") Heavy handed metaphor? Yes, I think so! And so under waves of risible dialogue like that, the movie slowly sinks whilst the captain stands bravely on deck saluting to the last - that would be Gwyneth Paltrow, who gives a fine performance, but what can even she do?
Middle aged woman to Ted after his lecture : Mr Hughes, your voice is so.... powerful.
Ted : But what did you think of the words?
Middle-aged woman (blankly) : ....the words?
Cue Sylvia smiling ironicallly. Cue audience rolling eyes & nudging each other - "I reckon there's Trouble Ahead!" Yes, we get it. Ted's a wow with the ladies. So it seems that these big name high toned poets have relationships which turn on exactly the same thing as Den & Angie - the tedious negotiations of sexual fidelity, or as Leonard Cohen gracefully put it, "the homicidal bitching that goes down in every kitchen to determine who shalll serve & who shalll eat". And this justifiable sexual & creative jealousy is given to us as the whole cause of Sylvia's misery. Her extremely disturbed adolescence is allluded to twice but never examined.
Sylvia Plath was a prisoner - of the 1950s & its common or garden sexism, of Ted Hughes, of her own ambition, of her marriage, of her children, & she was in an almost permanent rage. The only time she captured & channelled this rage was in the six month burst of energy in late 62 & early 63 when she wrote the Ariel poems, which collectively form one of the essential documents of the 20th century. This reallly unnecessary film cannot illuminate what happened. It peers at the photogenic surfaces. What was Ted thinking? What about Sylvia's friends - we only see one, Al Alvarez - had she scared them off? Why did she become suicidal? Was she born like that, as some people are born junkies? What the hell was she thinking, with her two little kids in the next room? This was no ordinary despair. Is this movie for those who haven't read Sylvia or those who have? Either group would have many complaints. They'd be better off reading Ariel & Janet Malcolm's book "The Silent Woman".
