Both Paltrow and Craig give engaging performances, but Paltrow's character in particular feels underwritten to the point that Sylvia never quite lives up to the potential that's surely offered up on a plate by these infamous characters.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 8, 2023

It seems reasonable as a first principle that a film about a writer should treat the subject of writing and a film about a specific writer should treat the specific subject of his or her writing.

| Feb 15, 2021

When there are so few stories dedicated to female creativity and pathos, you resent this one all the more for mishandling what might have been.

| Feb 3, 2020

A Hollywood product that exploits sickness.

| Apr 29, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Plath might have been the stupid cow that Paltrow plays, the stubbornly ambitious, jealous demonbit genius discontent, immune to the ordinary joys of life.

Full Review | Original Score: 82/100 | Nov 25, 2007

Gwyneth Paltrow is anything but engaging in this rarely interesting look at the life of author Sylvia Plath.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 8, 2006

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2006

| Original Score: 84/100 | May 13, 2005

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 31, 2004

Gwyneth Paltrow is a shining star and plays a faultless dramatic role.

Full Review | Original Score: 76/100 | Jul 20, 2004

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 14, 2004

Paltrow provides the depth that the script lacks, making a lot from very little.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 20, 2004

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 14, 2004

When it's all said and done, Plath had the courage of her convictions, and so does this honest movie.

| Feb 9, 2004

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2004

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 2, 2004

It lacks an incisive viewpoint and keeps us emotionally at arm's length.

| Jan 31, 2004

Not the last word on the subject by any means, but it is a solid entry into the canon that sensibly resists beatification or crucifixion of the Ariel poet.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 15, 2004

Good as Paltrow is, Sylvia reduces an intensely brilliant, haunted writer into a weepy, morose slacker whose overriding concern is where her husband is at all hours.

| Original Score: 2.5 | Jan 14, 2004