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Written by Mandroid3000
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SYLVIA
**1/2 out of *****
Genres
Biography
Drama
Romance
True Story
2003
Directed by
Christine Jeffs
Written by
John Brownlow
Cast
Gwyneth Paltrow .... Sylvia Plath
Daniel Craig .... Ted Hughes
Jared Harris .... Al Alvarez
Blythe Danner .... Aurelia Plath
Michael Gambon .... Professor Thomas
Amira Casar .... Assia Wevill
Andrew Havill .... David Wevill
Lucy Davenport .... Doreen
Liddy Holloway .... Martha Bergstrom
David Birkin .... Morecambe
Alison Bruce .... Elizabeth
The troubled relationship between poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes is one of the famous literary romances of the 20th century. Sylvia traces their first meetings as students at Cambridge University through to their separation and her eventual suicide (this is based on fact, so that doesn’t count as a spoiler). As a film about a doomed romance, it’s okay. But it never gets into the mind of Sylvia Plath.
As students Sylvia reads and loves one of Ted Hughes’ poems. She approaches him at a party, and they’re soon an item. She’s drawn into his (rather lame) poetry-loving group. They get engaged (via quoting Chaucer to some cows), and start life together as poets. But they need to earn money so she takes up teaching. Then, crucially, he becomes far more successful than her as a poet. She starts to feel trapped by his success. She stays at home and looks after the kids. She doesn’t write, both through time constraints, procrastination, and lack of inspiration. She starts to think he’s having affairs. He grows tired of her paranoia and moping.
One large problem for the film is that Frieda Hughes, who is Sylvia’s daughter and literary executor didn’t allow the filmmakers to quote her mother’s poetry. This leaves Sylvia with almost no voice of her own beyond whining. Ted Hughes may not be perfect, but he seems reasonably supportive of her poetry. She comes across more as a paranoid housewife than a great poet.
Eventually Sylvia and Ted separate, which is the event that spurs her creative revival. It seems that she could only create with pain in her life. Her downward spiral coincides with her artistic heights. But as she heads towards her inevitable suicide, it’s not really clear why she does it. Maybe it’s in the poetry, maybe even she didn’t know. It’s a serious impediment to making a good movie. Sure, she has a troubled relationship with Ted Hughes, but as portrayed here it doesn’t explain enough.
I didn’t go into this movie with much interest in Sylvia Plath’s poetry. What I had read seemed to have a fetishistic morbidity, though it may be the readers who did. I remember it being the favourite of all the pretentious arty girls in high school, the ones who thought that depression and angst gave them some sort of sheen of maturity or artistry. Rather than showing Sylvia as an interesting and complex person, the film shows Sylvia as akin to one of those pretentious teenage girls. A careful outward show of complexity, angst, and nice hair.
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