Sylvia
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Actor: Alison Bruce, Amira Casar, Blythe Danner, Daniel Craig, Gwyneth PaltrowBrand: Universal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Sylvia
DVD Review: The Society of Dead Poets
Summary: 3 Stars
The ambience created by Christine Jeffs in her 2003 film "Sylvia" starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig as married poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes uncomfortably cocoons the viewer within the darker recesses of the creative process gone wrong. Through the use of shadowy lighting and stark locales, she invites the audience into a world where the feel of artistic angst associated with the uncertainty of breaking with the mainstream flow of life can become a tangible and destructive force. Here, the paradox of finding the necessary solitude required to devote to one's art becomes equated with a paranoid sense of alienation that defeats all purposes. With this in mind, realize from the get-go that "Sylvia" is not a happy film, but a biopic filled with the frustration of wasted life.
The soundtrack by Gabriel Yared emphasizes the film's overwhelming melancholy and dire, already known, outcome to the extreme; as the music uncomfortably meanders and soars, taking on a life of its own, it sets up the fatalistic mood so well that this reviewer and anyone else who isn't familiar with Plath's eventual suicide will indeed wince each time the tragedy motif begins to play. So effectively does it signal the quickening momentum of the pain to come for this member of the Dead Poet's Society.
After graduating from Smith College in 1955 and receiving a Fulbright Scholarship to Cambridge, Plath, eventual author of the novel "The Bell Jar" and two collections of poems "The Colossus and Other Poems" and "Ariel Poems by Sylvia Plath," meets fellow poet Ted Hughes and falls madly in love. The two passionately discuss poetry, unabashedly spout Shakespeare, and deliberately move forward into their lives together as married academics. Nonetheless, despite the romantic rebelliousness of their intellectual pursuits, a bleak unhealthiness invades what could have been an idyllic partnership.
We get an inkling of the impending doom as Sylvia confides in Ted of a suicide attempt while in college where she crawled under her house after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. The "why" of this is never explored within the content of the film. Perhaps the expectations of her time force her spirit into a plummeting downward spiral. She is not alone in her pre-feminist 60's dilemma--being comfortable with the itch and angst associated with the artistic voice and yet desiring the conventional track of domestic happiness and contentment does not necessarily align well.
Already contemplating death before her meeting with Hughes, Plath suffers from the internal stress of not being quite good enough. When compared to her husband she considers herself an amateur, immature poet where her inability to craft automatic gifted verse results in an obsessive bout of cake baking and many hours of introspective nothingness. Perhaps, Ted symbolizes some intrinsic struggle with being a member of the `second sex.' Perhaps Plath as a fledgling poetess wanting to compete with her male counterparts succeeds only over time as she cultivates a rage and anger sufficient enough to measure with words. Maybe her real world accountability where the day-to-day moments of juggling teaching and raising children while managing her inner desires simply becomes too meaningless. Enjoying herself and life ventures into territory that is unknown when compared to the more complex desires of expressing a self she could not fully define.
Jeffs suggests all these images of Plath's shadow universe with dimly lit interiors, moody music and infinitely nuanced moments where Paltrow as Plath measures herself against Hughes in terms of her worthiness in different venues and social engagements with a wary arch of her neck and an angry pair of pressed-together lips.
Paltrow shines with the translucent insouciance of someone with great promise that is unaware of her possibilities. As the character sinks into depression, Paltrow becomes more ethereal, a creature like Shakespeare's Ariel of whom Plath writes. Paltrow's maternal-automaton portrayal of Plath's last act of putting bread and milk out as breakfast for her children before she kills herself, as well as the slow motion blurring of the film death and discovery-of-the-body sequence suggests an ultimate `poetry in motion' that screams of Plath's defiance for that last tumultuous line of verse fleshing out a situation of which only she could irreparably control like no pen and ink poem ever could. Clearly Hughes and his children were forever scarred.
John Brownlow's screenplay focuses on Hughes' infidelity with Assia Wevill (who became Hughes second wife and ironically also committed suicide) and Plath's almost paranoid concern that Hughes' popularity as a poet and an attractive man with a "come-hither" accent made him a magnet for women of all shapes and sizes. But as Plath already struggled with her self-worth or the seemingly meaninglessness of the world, the trigger of Hughes' popularity and subsequent flirtations seems only a surface diagnosis to the real problem at hand which is never really explored within the film.
Why Plath felt the way she did will never be fully understood. Her repeated attempts at suicide as depicted in her novel "The Bell Jar" are not touched upon in this film. Perhaps flashbacks depicting her life as a child with her parents, her mental state during her guest editorship at Mademoiselle magazine, her overdose of pills and her commitment to a mental facility prior to meeting Hughes would have rounded out her story and not put the sole blame of her melancholy on Hughes, his celebrity, his philandering and her dissatisfaction with her marital life.
As there is a lot of emotional ground to cover in the two hour running time of this film, much emphasis is placed on the dysfunctional relationship between Hughes and Plath. Nonetheless as this is a story about literary figures, it seems strange that the only time either of the pair waxes poetic in the film is to recite some other poet's work. The audience gets to hear some of "Daddy," but otherwise hears nothing of the works of either Plath or Hughes. On that purely literary level, hearing some of Hughes "Birthday Letters: Poems" verse or Plath's posthumous "Ariel" would have placed the audience in their mindspace where from individual perspectives would have come better understanding of the whole angst-ridden tale.
Bottom line? "Sylvia," directed by Christine Jeffs, deals with a somber theme that is sure to depress even lovers of the poetry of Sylvia Plath and poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Melancholy music and dimly lit spaces create an ambiance of overwhelmingly ill-fated disaster that portrays the dark side of genius in an extreme albeit ethereal way that suggests rather than defines Plath's ultimate motive. The dialogue of the film severely lacks recitation of either of the poets' works but good performances by Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig and Blythe Danner convince the audience to remain seated until the film's bleak climax. Recommended only to those who want to wallow inside Plath's complex mindset.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"
Description of Sylvia
Gwyneth paltrow is sexy and willful in the finest and most passionate performance of her career as legendary author and poet sylvia plath. A powerful and compelling love story about two of the last centurys most influential artists. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/24/2004 Starring: Gwyneth PaltrowThe biting poetry and sad life of poet Sylvia Plath form the story of Sylvia, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This subtle but fascinating movie centers around Plath's relationship with poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig, Love Is the Devil), with whom she fell aggressively in love while a student at Cambridge. Their relationship proved passionate but rocky; many of Plath's fans blame the depression that eventually led her to suicide on Hughes's infidelity. Sylvia doesn't let Hughes off the hook, but it doesn't paint Plath as a helpless victim either. Paltrow's superb performance captures the poet's fierce jealousy and artistic ambition as much as her debilitating sorrow. The movie makes no big statements about Plath's poetry, letting the troubling details of her life tell their own compelling story. Also featuring Jared Harris, Blythe Danner, and Michael Gambon; the acting is outstanding all around. --Bret Fetzer
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