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Sylvia
Who was Sylvia Plath? According to this patchy, dislocated biopic, the American poet was a suicidal, husband-obsessed woman whose creative flame was prematurely extinguished when she took her own life in 1963. Relegating the people and events of the period to the background, the film centres on the love affair between Plath and her husband, future poet laureate Ted Hughes. What draws us in is the central performance of Gwyneth Paltrow — as steely as it is vulnerable — while Daniel Craig's turn as Hughes is also superbly conveyed. However, John Brownlow's script tends to sanctify Plath's work and so the film becomes just another beautiful-person-in-anguish life story, à la Hilary and Jackie and Iris. Despite some atmospheric work from Kiwi director Christine Jeffs, Sylvia balks from the very aspects of Plath's semi-autobigraphy, The Bell Jar, that are so revealing.
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