Sylvia (2003)

• Review: ** (out of ****)
• Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Jared Harris, Blythe Danner, Michael Gambon, Amira Casar, Andrew Havill
• Director: Christine Jeffs
• Screenplay: John Brownlow
• Length: 116 min.
• MPAA Rating: R (For sexuality/nudity and language)

The real life story of a troubled poet acts as the background for the Focus Features release Sylvia.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays theeponymous Sylvia Plath, a real-life, renowned American poet whosetumultuous childhood and marriage to celebrated poet Edward "Ted" Hughes (Daniel Craig) act as depressing fodder for her own work. Thefilm opens with Plath's simple words about dying well and subsequentlyflashes back to the beginning of a long and depressing trek to her owndeath. Her first published poem is about to be reviewed and shediscovers that the critic didn't like it. Hughes read the poem andcritiqued it poorly and she seeks him out at a ball where they suddenlyfall in love and eventually decide to get married.

After the marriage, Sylviabegins falling deeper into depression where she believes her husband ischeating on her. She slowly collapses as the film progresses with anumber of narrow attempts at suicide thwarted by her love for herchildren. At first, we're merely bemused at the way she overreacts tosimple occurrences but eventually discover that her outbursts arelittle more than grabs at attention that she never attains.

Paltrow, not the greatestamong actresses, is the only thing propping up this dreadfully dullfilm. The audience is supposed to accept the couple's romance despiteonly about ten minutes of character development. The escapade Hughesand Plath take part in is superficial and confusing. Screenwriter JohnBrownlow and director Christine Jeffs don't seem to understand thenecessities of cinematic gestalt. To fathom the relationship thatdevelops between the characters, we need more build up and maturation.It's not enough that Paltrow conveys Plath's gradual mental collapseand her rabid jealousy, the rest of the cast is needed to provide thatextra impetus and there simply isn't enough to suffice.

Sylvia is a film that iscomposed of formulaic scenes torn from a sundry of better films aboutpsychological disintegration. Here, we're forced to follow along as abeautiful woman tries to avoid succumbing to her wretched emotions.Meanwhile, the period sets and costumes provide the illusion of awell-produced film while the plot meanders slowly to a hackneyedconclusion. Craig gives only a slightly better than averageperformance. His character is not sympathetic and we never care whetherSylvia stays with him or leaves. Jarred Harris as Ted and Sylvia'sfriend and publisher Al Alvarez attempts to give us an on-lookersperspective of the crumbling relationship but never elevates beyond aplot device.

Paltrow's real-life motherBlythe Danner also makes an appearance as Plath's onscreen mother.Danner appears in the film all too briefly, being the finest performerin the cast, thereby being forced to deliver an uninteresting andunneeded diversion. The most surprising performance comes from a manwho only appears in three useless scenes. Michael Gambon plays acharacter referenced in the credits as Professor Thomas but who theaudience merely recognizes as the kindly old man living downstairs.He's just what the doctor ordered to heal the ailing film but evenphysicians can only do so much when a patient is beyond the miracles ofmedicine.

Sylvia tries to be adeeply sentimental film while forcing the audience to rationalize whatit sees. The creators expect us to fall in love with this woman andempathize with the deep emotional pain she feels. They want us to see adeeper irony in this woman's life as she writes such beautiful, if notmorbid, poetry only to have a life filled with ugliness and misery. Toodeep for some and too shallow for others, Sylvia is a mélange ofstyles and themes that searches for an answer that it never finds.

-Wesley Lovell (December 10, 2003)