A growing moody storm of a life
Added 9/1/2009
The film Sylvia deals with the second half of poet Sylvia Plath's life, primarily on her marriage and motherhood and final great creative efforts. It is a tragic tale. It is tragic for within the wonderful creative person is growing depression, anxiety, and suspicion. The film reminds us that the human condition is fragile despite the strength and brilliance of creativity and genius. Of course there has been much back and forth around who was right and who was wrong in the Ted Hughes-Sylvia Plath marriage. I must say that the film is extremely fair and even-handed, never fully taking the part of Hughes over Plath or Plath over Hughes.
It is extremely difficult to make an interesting movie about a depressed creative genius and at least this film attempts to explore the untreated clinical depression that plagued Plath and made her life miserable and drove her husband away. What a complete tragedy that the artist found that the very quality within her that was making her miserable also drove away the person she loved most and thus even made her more miserable. Is there any character in mythology who found that the more they approached the beloved, the more the very act of approach drove the beloved away? This was the dilemma that Plath faced.
I was also touched by the struggle that Plath underwent being pulled into the world of the living by her children, her guilt about leaving them motherless, and yet the depressed undercurrent continually pulling her into the land of the dead. There is a scene of almost unspeakable pain where Plath puts her children in a car and drives to the ocean where she plans to drown herself. She looks back at the car before walking into the rough surf and sees the tiny innocent eyes of her children watching her every move. She just could not kill herself at that point and reluctantly and defeated she returns to the world of the living.
Yet there is a flaw in the film that is difficult to address. For basically we see a terrible tragedy of a depressed woman lose her husband through jealousy and insecurity and then finally commit suicide and yet we only get a few glimpses of her brilliance. What a struggle her life must have been and yet there were periods of great creativity as evidenced by her life's work
Gwyneth Paltrow does a great job and is perfectly matched by Daniel Craig as Ted Hughes. The photography and art direction are a concert in gray and black, moody colors to match the brooding depression in Sylvia's mind.
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THIS MOVIE TURNED ME INTO PALTROW FAN , GREAT.
Added 3/1/2009
if you like a good tear jerker,this movie is for you, its well- written,good acting. this film is very underrated. worth watching
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A noble attempt, but it falls short
Added 7/6/2008
I was concerned when I saw that Paltrow had been cast as Plath, so I avoided seeing this movie for years because I was sure she alone would derail the movie. How wrong of me - it's not that Paltrow isn't miscast, it's that the Plath she's playing isn't quite true to life. Paltrow actually does an excellent job with what she's given.
What's missing? Well, Plath's breezy, bright qualities are almost completely absent, save for some quick scenes at the beginning of the movie that only serve as a quick opportunity to show us how smitten she was with Hughes.
The movie also implies that, during her marriage, she was unable to write and when separated from Ted, she's seen scribbling furiously as though she's finally able to work on the poetry she was destined to unleash. It's clear that her later poems are her strongest because she's tapped into an energy she had not yet realized she possessed, but to imply that her married years weren't fruitful is to be unfair both to Plath and to Ted Hughes. Whether Plath fans like it or not, Sylvia looked to her husband as a mentor (even when she might have been jealous of her success) and he at least played a part in helping her to shape her voice as a writer.
This is a movie that would be critiqued widely no matter how accurate or carefully put together, but it feels like the script focuses on the great hurts inflicted upon Plath both by her mind and by her husband. Her life wasn't easy, but turning it into a spurned-wife melodrama simplifies a woman who was much deeper than that. It's possible to portray Hughes as the villain that he was while also making a movie that glosses over what draws us to Plath the most: her wonderful creative energy.
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"Her own words describe her best."
Added 5/29/2008
Having recently finished "Ariel: The Restored Edition" and "Her Husband, Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath: A Marriage", I thought I would finish off my Plath rampage with this movie. I was very disappointed. The movie was long, stuck to details of her life that probably didn't help move along the plot of the movie, and extremely melodramatic. I was dismayed and even a little embarrassedSylvia after finishing. In her introduction to "Ariel: The Restored Edition," Frieda Hughes says, "My mother's poems cannot be crammed into the mouths of actors in any filmic reinvention of her story in the expectation that they can breathe life into her again." I would say this film did a terrible job at attempting to "breathe life into her again," and ruined the image of Sylvia Plath for those whose only impression of her is this film. I full heartedly agree with Frieda, "Her own words describe her best."
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It should have been titled "Sylvia and Ted"
Added 4/25/2008
I am an avid Plath reader. I also like to learn about her life from a variety of sources, so when I heard of this film I was super excited before I saw it; disappointed after I saw it.
Many incidents were confusing. It leaned on the tragic and pathetic version of Plath's life. For a movie about Sylvia Plath there seemed to be a lot about her association with Hughes, little about her as an individual. The film, without prior knowledge of her life could be misleading at times. Plath was explosive (artistically, as well as emotionally) well before she ever met Hughes.
But Gwenyth Paltrow did such a great job trying to capture a complex person that seeing it once would not hurt. Just remember it is a Hollywood movie trying to titilate with a skewed story of a "mad" woman.
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