Sylvia

Synopsis: In 1956, aspiring American poet Sylvia Plath meets fellow poet Edward Ted Hughes at Cambridge, where she is studying. Enthralled with the genius of his writing, Sylvia falls in love with him even before meeting him, and he quickly falls in love with her. They eventually marry. Sylvia quickly learns that others are also enthralled with her husband, for a combination of his good looks, charisma, fame and success. Sylvia lives in her husband's professional shadow as she tries to eke out her own writing career, which doesn't come as naturally to her as it does to Ted. She also suspects him of chronic infidelity. Both issues affect Sylvia's already fragile emotional state, she who once tried to commit suicide earlier in her life. Through her pain and her anger, she does gain minor success as a writer, with a completed semi-autobiographical novel and a few well received collection of poems. Following, she tries to regain some happiness in her life with Ted, but has an alternate plan if that
Director(s): Christine Jeffs
Production: Focus Features
  1 win.
 
IMDB:
6.3
Metacritic:
56
Rotten Tomatoes:
37%
R
Year:
2003
100 min
$1,235,406
Website
654 Views


Dying is an art

Like everything else,

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say

I have a call.

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

Come on, you look

like a man who reads poetry.

- Tom!

- No?

Tom!

- Excuse me.

- Tom.

Tom, where are the magazines?

They got held up

at the printer's.

I saw you selling them.

Oh, that's right.

They didn't review me, did they?

No, they reviewed you all right.

It's "Poetry," page 11.

"Essentially commercial"

bourgeois poetic

"nakedly ambitious."

It's not very flattering.

Who the hell

do they think they are?

Well, you can ask them

yourself, if you want.

There is a launch party at

the Women's Union tonight.

8:
00.

- Genuinely subversive.

- Where is he?

- Who?

- The one who wrote it.

What? That stuff

about you?

No, the one who wrote

"Fallgrief's Girlfriend."

This Edward Hughes.

Ted?

He's over there.

- I read your poems.

- What?

As soon as I saw them, I knew

they were the real thing.

Great, big, crashing poems,

not blubbering baby stuff

like the others.

Shall we dance?

They're colossal,

magnificent,

great blowing winds

on steel girders.

- You like?

- I like.

"O, most dear

unscratchable diamond."

Who the hell are you?

Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath?

- The one whose poem

- you tore to shreds.

- No, no.

- Yes.

It was the editor.

He must have known

you were very beautiful.

You're all there, aren't you?

Yes, I am.

I have an obligation

in the other room.

Oh, Jesus Christ!

This I'll keep.

Black marauder

One day, I'll have

my death of him.

"One day, I'll have

my death of him"?

It's a bit morbid, isn't it?

He's my black marauder.

Well, don't get your hopes up.

Why?

What have you heard?

Him and his crowd, all

they care about is poetry.

Anything else is a distraction.

Including steady girlfriends.

Even pretty American ones with Fulbright

scholarships and red bicycles.

Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes.

Edward Hughes.

Edward Hughes.

Sylvia Plath.

Ted Hughes.

Mrs. Sylvia

Hughes.

Get over.

Quiet!

Oh, sh*t!

- Whe which one?

- That one.

How the bloody hell do you know?

Where the light's on.

- What are you doing?

- Stand back.

Oh, bugger.

- Give this a shot.

- Here.

Ooh, what you trying to do?

Bloody hell!

Oh, sh*t! Sh*t!

Shh.

Who is it? Who's there?

I'm looking

for Miss Sylvia Plath.

Well, she's not here,

so just bugger off.

Excuse me.

Please, could you tell

her that Edward Hughes

Ted Hughes, called for her.

You're late.

- He was here.

- Who?

Your black marauder.

Him and his little

playmate legless.

Chucking clods at my window.

Thought it was yours apparently.

What did he say?

Nothing comprehensible.

Sylvia.

He left an address.

"The chief defect of Henry King was

chewing little bits of string."

At last he swallowed so much it

tied itself in ugly knots inside.

"Physicians of the utmost fame

were called"

No, no, no, it's magic.

It's not about magic. It's not like magic.

It is magic.

"When Henry cried, 'All my

friends It's real magic."

It's not conjuring tricks or pulling

rabbits out of bloody hats.

Incantations.

Spells, ceremonies,

rituals what are they?

They're poems.

So what's a poet? He's a

shaman, that's what he is.

Or a shame.

"Where I used to spend

my time "

A f***ing good poem is a weapon.

It's not like

a pop gun or something.

It's a bomb. It's like

a bloody big bomb.

That's why they make children

learn them in school.

They don't want them messing

about with them on their own.

I mean, just imagine if a

sonnet went off accidentally.

Boom.

- Drink!

- Drink!

Sylvia!

Come on, Sylvia.

Go on, get up, go on.

"If it be you that stir

these daughters' hearts"

Against their father,

Let not women's weapons, water

drops, stain my cheeks!

No, you unnatural hags,

- "I will have such revenges on you"

- Faster.

"That all the world shall

I will do such things,"

What they are, yet I know not,

- "But they shall be"

- Faster.

"You think I'll weep.

No"

I'll have full cause of weeping,

But this heart shall break

into flaws or ere I'll weep,

"O fool,

I shall go mad."

Come on, Ted.

"I know you all and will a while

uphold the humor of your idleness."

Yet herein will I imitate

the sun who permit the clouds

To smother up his beauty when

he please again to be himself,

he may be more

wondered at by breaking through

- "The foul and ugly mists or vapors"

- Faster.

"If all the years

were play and holiday,"

To sport would be

as tedious as to work

And nothing pleaseth

but rare accident.

So when this loose behavior

I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promiseth,

by how much better than my word I am

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes,

and like bright metal on sullen ground

- "My reformation"

- Faster.

"Shall show them all goodly

and attract more eyes"

Than that which hath no foil

to set it off!

I'll so offend

to make offense a skill

"Redeeming time when

men think least I will!"

Morecambe, again. Okay.

"O, dear Juliet,

why art thou yet so fair?"

Shall I believe that

unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean

abhorred monster

"Keeps thee here in the dark

to be his paramour?"

"For fear of that, I still

will stay with thee,"

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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