Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia Plath movie is very bad, nearly campy, and beautifully shot. I remember seeing it the Friday it came out in theaters, with a friend and a mason jar of alcohol, where we laughed like hyenas at all the inaccuracies, horrifying the elderly Cambridge crowd who likely knew Plath - the most glaring being the mere fact that 5'9" ish Daniel Craig, clearly shorter than Gwyneth, was no match for the 6 foot plus football player-sized Ted Hughes (and his sex-face in the sex scene is HILARIOUS; American Dragon Tattoo will obviously rule).
Rewatching it, it still gives me some giggles. Worst of all, the script is crap. Ticking off the events of her life dutifully, starting with the bite, Sylvia has no inner life, no real goals, and is mostly given to reciting reams of poetry at every moment, or replying “I tried to drown myself once” when taken on her first boat ride, presumably, like the world’s very first goth girl in a Boston Brahmin-y drone. It’s the stuff that will lead to your own private jokes, if you were ever given to reading Plath’s journals or poetry, if you were one of those girls. Not a bad movie for a snowday.