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."

"Sylvia" from 2003 is basically the story of poet Sylvia Plath's relationship with her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, rather than the story of Plath's life, therapy, or evolution as a writer.Someone here put it best -- Plath suffered from depression from the time of her father's death when she was 9 years old, but she also had an almost manic energy which enabled her to churn out her work...and the mania in this film is sadly lacking. Instead, an aura of misery hangs over this movie like a black cloud. I have to admit, knowing something of Plath's life, the black cloud would probably be there anyway; it is difficult to show a writer's creative process on film.The layers of the Plath-Hughes relationship can't really be covered adequately. As portrayed by Daniel Craig, Hughes was a handsome and charismatic man, and he and Plath had an amazing sexual chemistry. Here, Plath is a bundle of neuroses and insecurities and is constantly suspicious when she sees him with a woman. It's not clear that in actuality was true. His infidelity did cause them to separate, but whether or not she drove him to it isn't clear. Living with either one of them couldn't have been easy.Gwyneth Paltrow, for all of this, does a marvelous job as Sylvia, as far as the script will let her. There's nothing of her electroconvulsive therapy, or what she went through under psychoanalysis, or her development under her various teachers, such as Anne Sexton. What you do see is her fragility, her emotions, her depressive state, and her passion. All of the performances are good; Michael Gambon does an excellent job as her concerned neighbor.Plath's daughter was against this film and wrote a poem about it: Now they want to make a film For anyone lacking the ability To imagine the body, head in oven, Orphaning children[...] they think I should give them my mother's words To fill the mouth of their monster, Their Sylvia Suicide Doll

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.

Surprisingly intricate, this film revolves more around the personal life of poet Sylvia Plath than delving into the creation of her works. I cannot help but comparing this film with "The Hours", where Nicole Kidman dishes out the performance of her life as Virginia Woolf; the films are, however, very different in style and implementation. This film largely takes on Plath's life though her relationship with Ted Hughes, a well-known and respected poet of his day. His constant infidelities with different women seems to have shattered Plath and subsequently their family. Remarkable cinematography and notable acting by Palthrow and Craig.