Director misportrays poets

Sylvia

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig

Directed by Christine…

Sylvia

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig

Directed by Christine Jeffs

“Sylvia,” from director Christine Jeffs (“Rain”), tells the true story of the romance and marriage of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Plath, portrayed in the film by Gwyneth Paltrow (“Shakespeare in Love”), was an unbalanced woman who attempted suicide multiple times over the course of her life. She first met Hughes (Daniel Craig) while attending Cambridge – the two fell in love and were married.

As they pursued their individual writing careers, Hughes found success while Plath’s work met with constant rejection. The strain that jealousy placed on the marriage was advanced by Plath’s fear that her husband was having affairs. While this was not initially true, her paranoid accusations eventually drove him to seek solace in the arms of another. The two divorced, and shortly after, Sylvia took her life by sticking her head in an unlit stove.

The story is familiar; anyone who has read Plath’s “The Bell Jar” is aware of her famous suicide. The point of retelling the story that everyone knows is to bring to life the passion of one of the 20th century’s greatest romances and to pry into the mind of a literary genius. Unfortunately, this film accomplishes neither.

Under the direction of Jeffs, “Sylvia” becomes a dull, shallow representation of two truly brilliant people. While Paltrow’s portrayal of Plath is beautiful, it does not pry into her psyche. Instead of seeing an artist driven mad by genius, we see an annoying, paranoid housewife. There’s no gradual downward spiral into the abyss of depression – instead, the director gives Sylvia over in a few glaring moments with blaring, melodramatic music. The soundtrack, by the way, is pretty bad. We don’t understand Plath, nor can we even attempt to – the Sylvia Plath presented by the film doesn’t have the depth required for understanding.

Also extremely underdeveloped is the passion and chemistry between Hughes and Plath. In an attempt to capture the essence of their relationship, a friend in the film says, “You understand each other in ways that others can only dream about.” Maybe, in reality, this was true, but in the film, any sense of understanding between the two is lost after they marry. Hughes is completely reasonable, Plath the opposite, and, as a result, the two seem distant from one another. A great love story is reduced to a mere going through of the motions.

This film is nowhere near as good as it should be; however, it does have its merits. Both Paltrow and Craig perform well, even if they do lack chemistry. For viewers not acquainted with Plath’s work, it serves as a nice, though superficial, introduction to her life story. If you’re looking for a more in-depth understanding of Plath, however, read one of her books – you’ll learn more from one chapter or poem than from the entirety of this film.

“Sylvia” opens in theaters this Friday.