Sylvia (2003) Critic Reviews

This is the richest role Paltrow has had since ''Shakespeare in Love,'' and she rises to the challenge. She digs deep into Plath's mercurial nature, giving us a Sylvia who's fiercely independent and alive yet burdened with demons of insecurity that bubble up in a rage. Read the full review

Christine Jeffs's film is an emotionally rich biography of the poet Sylvia Plath, who is played with radiant conviction by Gwyneth Paltrow.Read the full review

For those who have read the poets and are curious about their lives, Sylvia provides illustrations for the biographies we carry in our minds. Read the full review

At heart, Sylvia is constructed as a psychological suspense film framed around the ambiguities of Hughes's infidelity and Plath's resulting paranoia. So at its strangest, the movie is a potboiler. Read the full review

Doesn't shed much light on the fragile and enigmatic writer whose myth has nearly obscured the real woman. Read the full review

Sylvia underwhelms.Read the full review

Aside from Paltrow's performance, Sylvia is neither a film so spectacular it shouldn't be missed nor something so tepid you have to stay away. Read the full review

Still, there is an estimable integrity to the respect and fidelity with which the film regards its subjects, as well as an honesty in its attempt to illuminate the essences of these difficult people.Read the full review

Frustratingly anemic, the filmmakers hiding behind their good taste and sensitivity. They might as well have gone for broke, since Plath and Hughes' daughter accused them of monstrous exploitation anyway.Read the full review