Sylvia Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)November 11th, 2003
Sylvia
Matinee
No, it's not the play about the dog - it's a truncated biopic about the last seven years in the life of poet Sylvia Plath, author of the Bell Jar and untreated depressive. Focus Features is 5 for 5 on well-made, impressive and personal films with depth and beauty, and this is their latest, but not finest, achievement.
Gwyneth Paltrow, challenged with playing a woman who perpetually seeks to escape life, but also lives it full throttle, commands the role of Plath with precision. This is most definitely her movie. It would seem easy for an actress to mope her way through such a role, but Paltrow's portrayal of Plath's unique and prodigious depression and coping is truly spectacular. She shows more than tellsm her body movements are minutely expressive, and she really nails it. See the movie for her, regardless of your interest in Plath as a subject.
Paltrow was filming this role shortly after the death of her father Bruce Paltrow, and her performance is clearly informed by her grieving process. We are the richer for her choosing to expunge herself with this film. Honestly, I haven't seen her be this good in ages.
Delightfully, Paltrow's mother Blythe Danner, plays Plath's mother in the film. Mother and daughter obviously have an excellent rapport on screen, but it is Danner's brief scene with Plath's love interest, Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig from Road to Perdition) where the sparks truly fly. Paltrow and Danner resemble each other so much - Danner is warmer, but both share this unique expressiveness - it's a real pleasure to watch.
Craig's resonant, if mush-mouthed, voice is used effectively for his complex (yet thinly drawn) character. His face is just not trustworthy, so we share Plath's obsessive paranoia that he will do wrong by her. Plath humiliates herself again and agai over this man. We've all t some point had moments of this kind of irrational self loathing madness (even if only briefly in youth), so it takes very little to help us understand what is happening in her mind, leaving us only thirsty for Plath's own words. Access to her poems for the script was severely limited by her family, and it is our own loss in the film to see the birthwaters of her words but never see the final product. The tragedy is that the late 1950's and early 1960's were shody times for mental health care, and Plath's explosive talent was lost to her inevitable surrender to her inborn fatalism.
Composer Gabriel Yared (City of Angels, Possession) provides a stirring old-school score nearly straight out of Plath's time period. Director of Photography John Toon lights every scene so dimly, we cannot help but follow Plath down into her darkness. Toon's lighting allows for everything to be visible, but nearly zero light reflected from the screen onto our faces. The isolating effect was hypnotic. Even the walls of their home were a dark charcoal. It's a very elegant stting for Paltrow's nuanced performance, but it's a real downer. Enjoy!
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These reviews (c) 2003 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
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