Gwyneth shines but Sylvia still disappoints

Gwyneth Paltrow shines in this biopic of poet Sylvia Plath but the film still fails to give us further insight into her life.

Sylvia

Director: Christine Jeffs

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Blythe Danner, Michael Bambon, Jared Harris

Cert: 18.

Many people already know of the tragic death of doomed poet Sylvia Plath, who gassed herself in 1963. What we don't learn from this disappointing bio is who Plath really was and what drove her to such an awful death.

By now we do know that her once-passionate love affair with poet Ted Hughes, they having met in the late 1950s while students at Cambridge University, and his adultery was not the entire reason for her ending her life.

The film, however, fails to tie up the loose ends of their turbulent life.

Sylvia is a cop-out, it appears to lack the courage to more fully consider the Plath-Hughes relationship or to come to any decent conclusions about it.

Was Plath merely mentally troubled to the extent that her downward path was to be expected? Was Hughes really so awful that he must accept all the blame for his wife's suicide?

What does make the film partly worth watching is the acting of Paltrow, gaining a formidable reputation for her portrayals of real people.

And standing alongside her is the excellent Craig as Hughes. Interestingly, Paltrow's actress-mother (Danner) also appears.

Sylvia looks good, certainly it is an atmospheric film, and the performances are excellent … it just fails to fill in the blanks.

Star Rating: 3/5