MovieAddict's Movie Review of Sylvia (2003)

`I feel like God is speaking through me.'
MovieAddict - wrote on 04/06/13

"Sylvia" is the biopic of the suicidal poet Sylvia Plath and I think Gwyneth Paltrow portrayed Sylvia's plight and heartbreak very well…I could almost feel her pain and suffering as she captured the dark, depressed state of Sylvia. It seems as though the American poet had mental problems beginning from the time her father died and her insecurities pushed her to suicide on more than one occasion.

SPOILERS:
The movie commences with her university days at Cambridge where she meets and later marries a fellow-student Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), who has begun to make a name for himself in the world of poetry. After their marriage, they return to the States to meet Sylvia's judgmental mother (played by Paltrow's real-life mother, Blythe Danner) and Sylvia tries to strike a balance with writing poetry, being a teacher and later on a mother. Her fragile state of mind makes her jealous and distracted by the constant attention her husband receives from college girls and she accuses him of having affairs. Sylvia may have felt her bouts of jealousy were "justified" but she suffered mostly in private and never seemed to have got that help she so desperately needed.

As Sylvia sinks further into depression, Ted begins an affair with a friend, Assia, which is the last straw for their failing marriage and the couple separate. Sylvia struggles to take care of their two kids all the time writing but she still hasn't gotten the recognition she's convinced she so richly deserves, but, as her publisher advises her, you just have to suck it up and go on. At one point in the movie I was wondering if Sylvia was suffering from postpartum depression, but we know this has been going on for almost her whole life...It makes me wonder why her family never did do anything to help her? I am guessing with therapy this movie could have ended so differently but in the end unable to deal with reality and learning her husband's mistress is pregnant sends her over the edge.

Daniel Craig succeeds in making us despise his character Ted Hughes, an egotistical man who has become very famous eclipsing Sylvia in terms of fame while she, ends her life because she cannot imagine a life without him. It was also good to the Michael Gambon in a small but significant role.