SYLVIA
Directed by: Christine Jeffs.
Produced by: Alison Owen.
Written by: John Brownlow.
Director of Photography: John Toon.
Edited by: Tariq Anwar.
Music by: Gabriel Yared.
Released by: Focus.
Country of Origin: UK. 110 min. Rated: R.
With: Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig & Blythe Danner.

Leaving too many gaps unfilled and questions raised but unanswered, Sylvia is a thumbnail sketch of American poet Sylvia Path, becoming yet another tale of a beautiful woman knocked off her pedestal. It follows her years as a Fulbright scholar in Cambridge to her turbulent marriage to British poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig). While his star is rapidly rising, she subjugates her own writing to care for him and their young children. In their marriage, the unfaithful Hughes is clearly the heavy. In trying to convey the power of poetry, let alone Plath’s work, the film fails. A jam session where Cambridge students rapidly recite Shakespeare does nothing more than to reveal the smugness of Plath and her circle. And, while punting with Hughes, Plath reciting Chaucer to cows is a bit silly. Only snipets of her own poems are heard. Often the dialogue come across as pretentious and leaden, such as when Plath accuses Hughes of infidelity - "The truth comes to me, the truth loves me." Or, when responding to a compliment of her poetry, she replies, "It feels like God speaking through me." The static direction slows the film’s pace, while the script gallops through her life without developing dramatic tension. At a confrontational Christmas, after Hughes has left his family for another woman, he offers to talk. Plath responds, "Are you still f------- her?" and the scenes abruptly ends. The score, telegraphing Path's impending doom, is overused, perhaps to provide emotion that the film would otherwise lack. And the production design is so drab, that it's no wonder that she, or anyone, would kill herself. However, in her portrayal, Paltrow provides the depth that the script lacks, making a lot from very little. Her Plath is more angrily determined than simply depressed. Unfortunately, the portrayal of Hughes as a mumbling monotoned, guarded, and brooding poet is opaque. Craig is completely overshadowed by Paltow's charisma. But in Plath’s interactions with her judgmental mother, played by Paltrow’s real-life mother Blythe Danner, sparks fly. KT
December 9, 2003