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pixiecrinkleOkay, so I was very very anxious to see Sylvia. I am a huge Sylvia Plath fan. I read her "unabridged" diaries earlier this year, and just re-read The Bell Jar, so I know her life story, but I was interested to see how they did it on film.
If I knew nothing of Sylvia Plath's life, I'd have had many fewer problems with this film probably. It was well acted, and Gwyneth Paltrow was certainly the right choice to play Plath*.
That said, I take issue with a few things:
1. There is a scene between Aurelia Plath (distractingly played by Blythe Danner) and Ted Hughes in which they discuss Sylvia's failed suicide attempt during college. I really doubt this ever really happened, especially in such a relaxed way as is presented in the film. Her mother wouldn't speak of Plath's suicide attempt or subsequent institutionalization, and was horrified when The Bell Jar was published in the U.S. Furthermore, Plath and her mother had a very strained relationship, so the whole homecoming scene didn't do it for me.
2. The timing was off. Poems were written in the wrong part of her life, kids were born in the wrong areas, France was totally missing from the whole movie.
3. The last hour of the film dealt with Plath's final two months. None of her diaries from this time period survive, and Ted Hughes never said *that* much about it, so I have to assume that the screenwriter pretty much had to make up his own idea of what happened. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here -- I really want to be wrong here.)
4. There was an implied cause and effect that didn't sit well with me because of the fact that they had to condense a fairly complex situation down to a couple of hours. There was no mention of Plath's having been in an institution previously (except for a very quick allusion to shock therapy) so the film seems to just imply that she was suddenly ill. Then, the end (big spoiler here -- you have been warned) seems to imply that her suicide was a direct result of Hughes having permanently left her. Somehow, I have an idea it was a bit more complicated than that.
I really think a much better movie could have been made by exploring more of Plath's college years (and younger) because it would have painted a much more even and fair picture of her as a *person* rather than the quintessential "tragic poet" that this film created.
*Sylvia Plath really was quite pretty. Which reminds me of something that happened when I was at Denison. My junior year, Jorie Graham came to campus to read, and it happened to be just after she won the Pulitzer Prize, so it was a huge deal. My poetry prof, when telling us all to go to the reading, actually said, "Jorie Graham is one of America's loveliest poets," and she meant the way the woman looked, not the way she wrote. I was astounded that someone (especially another woman poet, not exactly unattractive herself) said that, when she would have never said it about a male poet. I ended up not so impressed by Graham either. I know she's good, but I find her writing quite inaccessible, and she was very egotistical to all the students there. She also chain-smoked like no one I've ever seen, which caused several of our writing profs I'd never seen light up before to become devoted smokers for the week she was on campus.
If I knew nothing of Sylvia Plath's life, I'd have had many fewer problems with this film probably. It was well acted, and Gwyneth Paltrow was certainly the right choice to play Plath*.
That said, I take issue with a few things:
1. There is a scene between Aurelia Plath (distractingly played by Blythe Danner) and Ted Hughes in which they discuss Sylvia's failed suicide attempt during college. I really doubt this ever really happened, especially in such a relaxed way as is presented in the film. Her mother wouldn't speak of Plath's suicide attempt or subsequent institutionalization, and was horrified when The Bell Jar was published in the U.S. Furthermore, Plath and her mother had a very strained relationship, so the whole homecoming scene didn't do it for me.
2. The timing was off. Poems were written in the wrong part of her life, kids were born in the wrong areas, France was totally missing from the whole movie.
3. The last hour of the film dealt with Plath's final two months. None of her diaries from this time period survive, and Ted Hughes never said *that* much about it, so I have to assume that the screenwriter pretty much had to make up his own idea of what happened. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here -- I really want to be wrong here.)
4. There was an implied cause and effect that didn't sit well with me because of the fact that they had to condense a fairly complex situation down to a couple of hours. There was no mention of Plath's having been in an institution previously (except for a very quick allusion to shock therapy) so the film seems to just imply that she was suddenly ill. Then, the end (big spoiler here -- you have been warned) seems to imply that her suicide was a direct result of Hughes having permanently left her. Somehow, I have an idea it was a bit more complicated than that.
I really think a much better movie could have been made by exploring more of Plath's college years (and younger) because it would have painted a much more even and fair picture of her as a *person* rather than the quintessential "tragic poet" that this film created.
*Sylvia Plath really was quite pretty. Which reminds me of something that happened when I was at Denison. My junior year, Jorie Graham came to campus to read, and it happened to be just after she won the Pulitzer Prize, so it was a huge deal. My poetry prof, when telling us all to go to the reading, actually said, "Jorie Graham is one of America's loveliest poets," and she meant the way the woman looked, not the way she wrote. I was astounded that someone (especially another woman poet, not exactly unattractive herself) said that, when she would have never said it about a male poet. I ended up not so impressed by Graham either. I know she's good, but I find her writing quite inaccessible, and she was very egotistical to all the students there. She also chain-smoked like no one I've ever seen, which caused several of our writing profs I'd never seen light up before to become devoted smokers for the week she was on campus.
