Sylvia (2003) 4/10
Poet Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) meets poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig). They fall in love, marry, and have two children, but are plagued by Ted’s infidelity and Sylvia’s depression. Sylvia Plath committed suicide in 1963.
In anticipation of the release of Casino Royale, I’ve been seeing as many Daniel Craig movies as I can. There’s no doubt he’s a talented actor and physically powerful. But Sylvia is not a good movie.
It starts off promisingly. The scenes of Sylvia’s first encounter with Ted and of their early relationship are imbued with passion and intensity. Here I thought to myself, ‘How refreshing. A movie about a person who committed suicide that isn’t gray and heavy and sad.’ But soon it turned into exactly that movie.
Sylvia’s depression is shown with little insight. The movie is entirely from her point of view; sympathetic and kind of romantic, exactly the sort of thing that fans of Plath are criticized for—romanticizing suicide. But this single-minded focus damages the movie; without perspective we just can’t tell what’s going on. Sylvia is so brittle and mutable that when she suspects Ted of infidelity it appears to be her own paranoia. In fact, I had to read articles about the movie and the poets themselves to discover that Ted was, in fact, unfaithful virtually every time she suspected him.
Sylvia is filmed as such a neurotic, so terrified and clinging, that when, late in the movie, we see Ted in the actual act of adultery, I still thought it was a paranoid fantasy of Sylvia’s (the editing definitely allowed for it).
Because this is a “classy” project, it is stocked with name actors in brief roles, including Paltrow’s mother (Blythe Danner) playing Sylvia’s mother. Michael Gambon is charming and wasted as Sylvia’s neighbor.
Bond fans will note that Craig dyed his hair a dark brown for the role. Apparently he doesn’t object to changing his appearance when playing real people.
I like Paltrow, but I was so disappointed by this film. It’s so slow and focuses on Plath’s neurosis without offering any explanations about why she suffered while wildly oversimplifying her suicide. Plath’s work shows a woman more concerned about death than life and the film never explores that, the nature of Hughes’ infidelity, or Plath’s feelings towards her children. Ugh!
Yeah, I agree. It was ugh. Except right at the end, when they show how she protected her children from the effects of her suicide, in that moment you can see the quality of mothering is there.