The tempestuous relationship between Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig) is given center stage in this 2003 biopic, beginning with their first meeting at a Cambridge University party and ending with the dissolution of their marriage and Plath's suicide. Sylvia is filled with poems—early in the film, Plath and Hughes happily and aggressively recite Shakespeare and Chaucer to each other as an act of courtship, and later they gather with friends to hear a recording of Robert Lowell reading "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket." Excerpts from Plath's own poems also appear throughout the movie. Although this film has received criticism from Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes, for sentimentalizing her mother's suicide, Paltrow as Plath brings grace and tact to a difficult role.
Directed by Christine Jeffs (2003). Rated R.