Thursday, January 29, 2004
Not Quite Sylvia
A great many teenagers who have done English Literature at high school (and sometimes beyond) in the last few decades have come across Sylvia Plath's writing. More so than most other poets, she tends to make a serious impression. Perhaps it's the authenticity of her tortured artist story; perhaps it's that some of her poems marry precise language and agonising depression so beautifully. Either way, a biopic has probably been on the cards for ages. The surprising thing about the film Sylvia is that Gwyneth Paltrow does a truly excellent job at playing Syvia Plath. Likewise, Daniel Craig does a pretty decent Ted Hughes. At least, they do as good a job as the script allows them. Paltrow's performance is powerful, but it's almost as if the director lacked confidence in her and resorted to an overdramatic score and far-too-obvious and cliched a script. Neither director Christine Jeffs nor screenwriter John Brownlow have done anything else of note, and the lack of experience is obvious. The sets are precise for the period, most of the other actors are well cast (especially Michael Gambon as Sylvia's neighbour who witnesses parts of her decent toward suicide), but the film fails to quite capture the Sylvia Plath I had in my head. As others have commented, a script dealing with poets, giving them words to speak, needs to be beautiful and poetic in its own right. The script for Sylvia is not.
A great many teenagers who have done English Literature at high school (and sometimes beyond) in the last few decades have come across Sylvia Plath's writing. More so than most other poets, she tends to make a serious impression. Perhaps it's the authenticity of her tortured artist story; perhaps it's that some of her poems marry precise language and agonising depression so beautifully. Either way, a biopic has probably been on the cards for ages. The surprising thing about the film Sylvia is that Gwyneth Paltrow does a truly excellent job at playing Syvia Plath. Likewise, Daniel Craig does a pretty decent Ted Hughes. At least, they do as good a job as the script allows them. Paltrow's performance is powerful, but it's almost as if the director lacked confidence in her and resorted to an overdramatic score and far-too-obvious and cliched a script. Neither director Christine Jeffs nor screenwriter John Brownlow have done anything else of note, and the lack of experience is obvious. The sets are precise for the period, most of the other actors are well cast (especially Michael Gambon as Sylvia's neighbour who witnesses parts of her decent toward suicide), but the film fails to quite capture the Sylvia Plath I had in my head. As others have commented, a script dealing with poets, giving them words to speak, needs to be beautiful and poetic in its own right. The script for Sylvia is not.
[Posted by Unknown] [11:19 pm]
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