Sylvia

Rating:
Summary: Paltrow is totally believeable and is fantastic
Review: Gwyneth Paltrow (The Talented Mr. Ripley, A View From The Top) portrays 50's and 60's poet Sylvia Plath who fell in love with British poet Edward "Ted" Hughes, played by Daniel Craig (The Trench). Their marraige starts off good but she becomes jealous of him thinking he's seeing women behind her back, which he is and she's jealous that he can come up with a poem faster then she can. Not supposed to be a feel good movie but the poetry mixed with the acting is fantastic. Paltrow shines and is totally believable and fantastic and Craig is demanding in his role as Teddy Hughes. Once again, in a movie, Blythe Danner (Cruel Doubt, No Looking Back), Paltrows real mother, plays yet her mother again. Also starring Jared Harris (The Eternal: Kiss Of The Mummy, Igby Goes Down) and the wonderful Michael Gambon (Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban, Gosford Park). The end result is tradgic since its sad how Slyvia Plath took her own life but her presence still remains in her poetry and writings. Her most best and honored work would be "Aerial" the stuff she wrote before she took her own life.

Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: I agree with all the negative reviews, and think that Paltrow gave a good performance, and I would tell anyone interested in SP to see the film (Don't know if you cd stop them) but I'd say that overall the movie is too long and melodramatic, boring at times, and has no depth. I found myself checking my watch only 30 minutes into it. The other bad thing about this is that the DVD itself sucks. With no extra features, I don't see the point. They could have at least had some commentary or making of stuff, or even a Plath doc on it- but there is nothing at all. I hated "The Hours"- I thought that was even worse than this, but at least the DVD is better and has more features on Woolf and the writer, etc. I ended up getting "The Hours" on DVD even though I hated the film because of the features (I only paid like 6 dollars of course). But overall, bad movie, poorly written, but well acted, nice cinematography and no features on the DVD. What a bunch of lazy bums.

Rating:
Summary: Sylvia
Review: I am going to give this film 4 stars even though it probably doesn't meet everyone's expectations. Making a biography is difficult because life doesn't necessarily offer as many sensational choices as fiction. At two hours a lot of her life is left out. 'Gandhi' with Ben Kingsley is the great biography which comes to my mind now and that movie was over three hours long.

As history, 'Sylvia' does a good job from what I know about her life. Left out is the fact that Ted Hughes later became poet laureate of England, although he was blamed by some for her demise and death. Worth watching.

Rating:
Summary: The Bell Jar Girl
Review: I caught this movie on HBO a few nights ago. I had heard about it, and wanted to see it. I knew Gwyneth Paltrow and her real-life mother, Blythe Danner, were playing Sylvia Plath and her mother. I expected the movie to be a downer, since it is a true story, and Sylvia Plath committed suicide in February 1963, during an especially bitterly cold winter, even by England standards - and I was not wrong. This movie left me feeling down, very down.

This movie seems to take for granted that everyone knows HOW Sylvia Plath committed suicide. They show everything that I have read about her last hours on earth, except how she killed herself. She really did take bread and milk, and put it by her children's beds. She did close their door and seal it with tape and put a towel at the bottom, so as to protect them from the gas of the oven.

I would not recommend this movie to anyone who has, or is, suffering from depression, or going through an especially dark, stressful period in their life. I thought it was informative, very low-key and very depressing.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging Story - Riveting Performances
Review: I didn't know of this movie until I saw it on the video store shelf and thought, "Sylvia Plath - poet, writer, depressed-person-who-kills-herself, mother. Yes. It would be the perfect study for a poet, writer, mother, one-time-depressed-person-who-doesn't-kill-herself like me.

I also knew Gwyneth Paltrow was in it so it must have merit from that alone.

I read several of the reviews here and was prepared for anything - not liking it, loving it, not caring about it.

I found myself pulled into the imagery from the beginning - ironically, to the aliveness which seemed to inform Sylvia's creativity... like the energy of the wind pushing their leaves into dancing or the movement of the row boat upon the ocean when she was "unable to write".

One of the reviewers spoke of this piece being presented from the viewpoint of Plath's husband, poet Ted Hughes, played in this film by Daniel Craig.. I felt it was balanced - and truthful - it didn't sugar-coat either "side", it instead simply unfolded the story that bound these two (and those around them) forever.

Some of my favorite images from the film were Ted leaving, once again, and the focus being strongly on the couple and then seeing their daughter, alone, playing quietly outside as her Daddy leaves them. It is like the child is a shadowy afterthought, perhaps like Plath saw herself following her Father's death when she was only 9 years old.

Another image is Plath preparing to write (typewriter in place, paper and pencils at attention, everything "perfect") and nothing coming from her mind or heart onto the page.

I also appreciated seeing Plath's intuitive side picking up on her husband's ultimate marriage breaking affair during a seemingly innocent incident, which was followed by an incredible line (and I wonder if it came from any of Plath's writing?") "The truth comes to me. The truth loves me."

I also appreciated the subtlety of Plath's ever-present mental illness. Throughout the movie there were times when she would simply repeat, "I am tired. I am sooooo tired."

She wears the same skirt in many of the scenes, day after month after year.

I also tuned into the quietness of Plath's depression - the wordlessness of it - the inability to speak it or write it into the air. She finally speaks it to a friend, saying "I'm hollow."

Yes, there is much to consider, to study, to revel in from this movie. The facial expressions from Paltrow and Craig are enough to fill several pages.

Watch it. Sit with it. Watch it. Sit with it. If you are a writer yourself, write from it.


Rating:
Summary: Expected to be more moved
Review: I expected to feel more emotion during the film, having read "Birthday Letters" and the biography "Her Husband" before watching this movie, and having studied Plath in school. The movie seemed...flat. It skipped through the storyline pretty quickly too. First they are newlyweds and ten minutes later they have two kids, sprinting through the years of marriage.

I was glad to see a balanced portrayal--Hughes has always been history's villain, but in the movie it is a little more subtle portrayal of a marriage between two passionate, creative people who seemed fated to cause each other pain.

Rating:
Summary: Suffers from "this would make a good movie" syndrome
Review: I have a theory, one which largely influences this review. I have found that true stories which make you say, "That would make a great movie" are the hardest to make a good movie of, and they often end up looking a lot like cliche television movies-of-the-week. This is probably due to the fact that the director and writer are locked into playing out the story elements. The problem is compounded when the true story is a biography: we inevitably get each of the most famous moments of the person's life dramatized in order.

On the other hand, true stories which seem too simple to make good movies of, often become brilliant movies because there's so much room for the director to add subtety and humor. Thus, two simple true stories produced the two best movies I've seen this year: "In America" and "Moonlight Mile."

"Sylvia" is a perfect example of the former. Reading through a book biography of Plath, or the lengthy Vanity Fair article biography, one can't help thinking, "This would be a great movie! I can just see this brash American girl in her scarlet dress nail handsome poet Hughes at a party. I can just see him jumping up at a pub and reciting brilliant poetry. I can just see her manic episodes come to life as these two great personalities clash. And oh her famous ending dramatized!" But if you know her story at all, the movie lacks any creativity, and seems to just to dramatize each favorite moment scene by scene. Do the actors or script provide some intimate interpretation of the story, one which makes us wonder? Not really. Paltrow is a beautiful and talented actress, but her casting was far too safe for the role, and she plays it by the book, while not capturing enough of Plath's Americaness. It would have been interesting to see Scarlett Johannsen in that role --a woman I think looks more like Plath, and one who might fit the dresses and the settings of the era in a typically American way (i.e. less thin and pseudo-British than Paltrow). It was hard for me to get past Paltrow as "an actress playing Plath," especially when the script and direction provided no added subtlety to the story. The director only seems interested in making the sets and locations truthful: a common pitfall of directing biographies of famous people.

If you know Plath's story, I think you'll be disappointed by the film. If you don't know her story, I think the movie may be a treat, despite its faults.

Rating:
Summary: Partial Portrayal.
Review: I have been waiting to see this movie since I first heard it was in production. As someone who writes herself, I have long admired the mesmerizing, exposed, raw depth that is Sylvia's talent. Sylvia's poems (and life), move the on looker deep inside of her core in such a way that no other can do. This was not captured in the movie. This movie was a surface display that skims the honesty and history of Sylvia. It's as if the director was provided a "summary" of Sylvia's life (and only part of her life, her life with Ted) and stretched that summary out for an hour and fifty minutes. The movie was slow and this could have been avoided if more of her life was explored. To see the essence of Sylvia, you need to see her earlier years (her childhood, her father and mother, her hospital stay, her internship, The Bell Jar) and delve inside of her mind and her need to purge through her writings. There was also an evolution in the development of Sylvia's poems, in her real life, that the movie completely by passed. Her poems initially were written with the aide of a thesaurus and tended to be classic and calculated, while the final poems, written before her death came pouring out in shorter, smashing truth. Her best poems written at her deepest point. There is a creative story to be told her then, as well. Her poems growth, tell multiple stories in themselves. I learned nothing new, and in fact mostly noticed what was missing. The movie was emotional, but too direct as to why (there was more to the why). Any movie that has such an ending, would touch the viewer. However, it was actually my prior knowledge of Sylvias demise that moved me through the movie, not the movie itself. Those who view this movie without that prior knowledge are not experiencing her story in the fullness. I hope one day a movie is made about Sylvia the at least _tries_ to capture the many faceted dimensions of her whole life and the haunting vulnerability of her work.

Rating:
Summary: A bit too circumspect
Review: I have to give the folks behind this movie credit for not dwelling too much on the melodramatic aspects of Sylvia Plath's short life. But the fact is that her story really was very melodramatic throughout, and "Sylvia" tries too hard to look past that.

Too bad, because it's otherwise a great movie. All the essentials of Plath's relationship with Ted Hughes are presented, with just enough details of her early life filled in through dialogue to give even unfamiliar viewers an understanding of the troubled poet's story. The cinematography is great throughout, and the writers were surprisingly careful to avoid taking sides in the still ongoing did-Ted-drive-her-to-suicide debate. (Both are portrayed as passionate lovers but terrible spouses, which is probably the truth.) And yes, the producers were legally barred from using all but a few random lines of Plath's poetry in the script, but I didn't find that very harmful - anybody can recite poetry, and having Gwyneth Paltrow do so won't necessarily give you a better appreciation for its meaning anyway.

What is more troubling is the lack of any effort to illustrate what inspired Plath or how her work impacted the last few years of her life. Even "The Bell Jar" warrants only one mention, and that almost in passing. This is acceptable in the context of a story that seems far more focused on her relationship with her husband than anything else, but at the very least the movie's title probably should have reflected that.

Still, it's an interesting, if appropriately bleak, look at one of the more tragic marriages in literary history.

Rating:
Summary: Good Movie.
Review: I liked this movie, and I didn't think I would. I was very pleasantly surprised. At first I was dubious when I heard that Paltrow was playing--physically I thought Kate Winslet resembled Plath more--Paltrow proved me wrong. She did a terrific job.

Generally speaking, I like Plath's art. Without question, she was intensely bright, intensely academic, and she also suffered, tragically, from mental illness. Mercifully she managed to control her mania for a short while in order to produce some brilliant work before she burned out. That is admirable.

I was not overly inclined to see this movie, because I was dreading the romanticized misery that a movie like this can become. Sadly, I feel that much of Plath's literary mystique is about her misery, and an industry has been built around the drama of her suicide. Her own daughter refers to this as "the Sylvie suicide doll." Plath has inspired a cult following of overachieving depressed college students, and, unfortunately, I believe that this fan base has managed to undermine Plath's very serious efforts.

The movie magically avoided all of this. I admire the movie because there is nothing glamorous about it. It provides a very honest, sympathetic sense of Plath's illness and her breakdown. Enormous sections of this film have very little talking, and it is effective. It does not try to present Plath as a stereotypical melancholy artist with a death fixation. It also gives Ted Hughes some deserved sympathy as well. Moreover, I thought it was a strength that the movie did not get mired down in recitations of poetry.

It simply gives you Syvlia Plath, her energy and her mania.