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Gwyneth Paltrow gives the best performance of her career as poet Sylvia Plath in Christine Jeff's Sylvia. Athough the writer’s famously troubled persona could easily lend itself to soap opera-style theatrics, Paltrow gives an impressive portrayal, convincingly expressing both Plath’s brilliance and her massive insecurities. Daniel Craig is equally imposing as the brooding Ted Hughes, alternatively engendering sympathy and contempt as her adulterous husband. The passion and cruelty of the relationship is movingly depicted, and there are many tour-de-force set pieces; in one terrific sequence worthy of Mike Leigh, a would-be friendly dinner party quickly descends into a nightmarish scenario as Plath’s unvoiced suspicions of her husband’s infidelity gradually ruin the cheery atmosphere. The film does not ignore the bitter irony that it is Sylvia's apparent mistreatment by Hughes that enables her to become the superior poet, and this devastating portrayal of the artistic muse is one of the many interesting themes examined in this engrossing work.

 

Alex Davidson on 1st July 2004
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