NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

dirtphelia After reading "The Bell Jar," I decided to watch this movie, which for some reason I thought would be a film adaptation of "The Bell Jar" - though maybe I thought that because that book is Plath's most famous work.The movie has nothing to do with "The Bell Jar" except for the few seconds in which Sylvia tells Edward about how she tried to kill herself when she was younger. The rest of the movie seems to be about the couple's drama, and I say "seems" because I skipped most of it to save my brain from the boredom and to get to the part where Sylvia kills herself, at which point the door to the kitchen closes and we can't see her going through with it anyway.Gwyneth Paltrow does a great job but she was the wrong person for this role because the whole time I'm not thinking "There's Sylvia," but rather, "There's Paltrow playing Sylvia."

Lee Eisenberg First of all, I've never read any of Sylvia Plath's poems. Watching Christine Jeffs's "Sylvia", what I interpreted is that the movie wanted to focus more on Plath's depression than on her oeuvre. Plath was stuck in a loveless marriage and her poetry was the only joy that she got. We can debate whether it's better for a biopic to focus more on the subject's work or the subject's life, but I think that it's good to have a frame of reference (in this case, Plath's unfulfilled existence).Gwyneth Paltrow puts on a pretty grim performance as Plath, while Daniel Craig makes Ted Hughes look like a real creep. The movie isn't any kind of masterpiece, but I think that it gives a good sense of how one's existence influences one's work. It's worth seeing for that.

miloc This biopic suffers a fatal omission: poetry. That's a problem, given that the two main characters are Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, two of the more celebrated poets of their time, and doubtless the lack of their work in the movie stems from the hostility of their respective literary estates to the making of this film. Which begs the question: then why make the film?If the filmmakers believed that the natural drama of the situation was enough to cover the lack, then they seem to have erred. Without their verse -- which other characters helpfully inform us is really really good -- we are left with two rather problematic subjects. Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow, giving an extraordinarily fine portrait of fragility and mental illness) comes off as a clinical case rather than a character -- we gather that she wrote some powerful poems and something else called "The Bell Jar," which sounds nice for her, but all we get to see is a troubled young woman who, without treatment, clearly would have been bent on self-destruction no matter whom she married or what line of work she took up. This is deeply sad but not inherently dramatic. (Here we have the difference between "that which is tragic" and "a tragedy.")Hughes (Daniel Craig) suffers even worse by the loss. Since we have no insight into his soul, artwise, and no context with which to evaluate or respect his abilities, he comes off as a plot device rather than a person. (The only poem he reads is by Yeats.) Craig has a hooded gunmetal stare, a rumbling voice and the physique of an action star, and his casting here as a future laureate holds interest: a poet with the physical presence of a prizefighter. (Although has any real poet/children's' book author ever really been that buff?) But the script lets him drift, and all he can do is stride around looking worried and vaguely guilty. Ultimately the only thing we really have to go on is that Hughes seems to have done well with the ladies. As insight goes, that's not much.The movie is well-shot, and occasionally moving, but more often than not its only virtue is to provide an incentive to seek out these writers' frustrating missing words for ourselves. Perhaps then we can see what all the fuss was about.

Rick Blaine This could have been a made for television movie, but it's a BBC movie, so you know it's going to be better anyway. Gwyneth shines, as does her mum, and everybody is very very good. There's just one issue.Daniel Craig. The next James Bond. You can't understand a word he says. He mumbles. Incoherently. He hasn't any diction at all. You'd almost want to ring him and suggest he take the Demosthenes cure.His diction is so bad that only a single line in the movie comes across as distinct - and even that takes an effort on the part of the viewer. Something remotely reminiscent of the following.'I've been told you're taking pills.'And before and after that you'd swear there was mud in the sound system when he speaks.There's one scene in the movie where Paltrow and then Craig recite poems of their own at breakneck speed. Paltrow is intelligible even if she's hurtling through it so fast you can't really comprehend, but Craig is just a succession of pseudo-vocal grunts and other assorted sounds.Think back to that very first Bond scene where 007 was first introduced. The casino. In London. Where Bond is fleecing Sylvia Trench at the chemin de fer table. And shiver at the prospect that it's not Connery but Craig who delivers the famous line.'I admire your courage, Miss...?''Trench. Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, Mr...?''Mumble. Mumble mumble.''WHO??!??'It's a sad story, and Paltrow doesn't portray her character as morbid and unsympathetic as some wannabe critics would have it, and the dynamic of the relationship between Plath and Hughes comes through with brilliant colouring, but it's a biopic. Some will love it, others hate it - and most will speculate how much more they could have enjoyed it had they understood anything Craig said.All of which is not to say Plath's poetry or poetry in general merits special recognition. The poetry of both Hughes and Plath comes across today as specious and pretentious. But all that can be overlooked with a thespian performance of the class of Gwyneth.