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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
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66
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74
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48
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56
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Brothers Bloom, The
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Easy Virtue
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End of the Line, The
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Examined Life
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Gigantic
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Girl from Monaco, The
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Girlfriend Experience, The
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89
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Great Buck Howard, The
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Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
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New York
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Rudo y Cursi
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Seraphine
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Sex Positive
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Shall We Kiss?
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Sin Nombre
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Sleep Dealer
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Song of Sparrows, The
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Sugar
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Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
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88
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Two Lovers
83
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U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Sylvia
Focus Features
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sexuality/nudity and language
Starring
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Daniel Craig,
Blythe Danner,
Lucy Davenport,
Michael Gambon,
Jared Harris,
Eliza Wade,
and
Amira Casar
Paltrow stars as legendary American author and poet Sylvia Plath, opposite Craig as British Poet Laureate Edward (Ted) Hughes. The film explores the source of creative genius, and love in all its passion. (Focus Features)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
John Brownlow
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Christine Jeffs
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD:
Video: February 10, 2004
Theatrical: October 17, 2003
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
100 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
91
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
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.

90
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Christine Jeffs has directed it with discretion and intimacy, almost a paradoxical privacy.

80
Empire
June Howdel
Though the sketchy narrative could do with a bit of filling out, and the settings could be less gloomy, this is a memorable interpretation that benefits enormously from sound casting decisions.

80
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Christine Jeffs's film is an emotionally rich biography of the poet Sylvia Plath, who is played with radiant conviction by Gwyneth Paltrow.

80
Dallas Observer
Gregory Weinkauf
As a film it's mostly top-notch work. Kiwi director Christine Jeffs has taken the poignant, thoughtful screenplay of erstwhile documentarian John Brownlow and rendered it a moving mood-piece of subtlety and ever-encroaching sorrow.

80
LA Weekly
Ron Stringer
The excellent cast is headed by Gwyneth Paltrow in the mood-shifting title role and Daniel Craig as the helpless, not-so-happily philandering Hughes.

75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Paltrow's performance in Sylvia doesn't have Oscar- worthy depth, but it's a solid, sincere portrayal that captures enough sides of Plath's complex personality to enrich the movie, directed with impressive visual power by New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
For those who have read the poets and are curious about their lives, Sylvia provides illustrations for the biographies we carry in our minds.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Sylvia the movie competently shows us how; but, as always, it's Sylvia the writer who brilliantly tells us why -- then, now and tomorrow, her foreboding words are her finest legacy.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
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.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
What Jeffs -- and Paltrow -- do capture is the shroud of tragedy that hovered over Plath.

63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Despite an exceptional performance by Paltrow, whose Plath is a layer cake of infinite intelligence and bottomless need, Jeffs' film is an icy affair lacking the fever of Plath's and Hughes' poems.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Paltrow does this role exceptionally well, but it is underwritten.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Doesn't shed much light on the fragile and enigmatic writer whose myth has nearly obscured the real woman.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Sylvia underwhelms.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
You can also see Sylvia without realizing she could be witty and bemused, qualities apparent in her posthumously published novel, "The Bell Jar." This book, which spoke to sensitive girls of the 1960s like few others, is mentioned once in passing in the film. We never see her writing it or learn what it means to her.

60
Slate
David Edelstein
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.

60
TV Guide
Ken Fox
While there's plenty of Shakespeare, Lawrence and Yeats scattered throughout John Brownlow's screenplay, there's precious little Plath -- no doubt the unfortunate result of the stranglehold the Hughes estate still maintains over her work.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
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.

60
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
A not-very-good movie about a fascinating and underexplored subject: the unknowability of a marriage.

60
Village Voice
Jessica Winter
A handsome, mostly tasteful production on par with 2001's Bayley-Murdoch impersonation "Iris."

60
Variety
Todd McCarthy
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.

60
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Having dreaded the prospect of Sylvia, I admired it precisely because it refuses to play along with the mythologizing that has sprung up, and vulgarized, the lives of two poets. [20 October 2003, p. 206]
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
In spite of Frieda Hughes' objections, a few snippets of Plath's poetry slip into Sylvia, but they don't do the movie any favors--they just add more weight to a story that already buckles at the knees.

50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The movie doesn't shed much light on their famously contentious marriage. Instead, it spreads gloom all around.
50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Paltrow looks glam even in death, which only supports the notion, raised by Plaths daughter Frieda Hughes, that the movie would be about a "Sylvia Suicide Doll." Good call.

50
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
The problem with Christine Jeffss Sylvia, as with most movies about deeply troubled artists, is that for the most part we are seeing the troubles and not the artist.

50
New York Post
Megan Lehmann
This frigid and inaccessible period piece wears its glumness like a shroud.

50
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
It's a dreary movie about a dreary character, offering little insight into her poetry or the mental illness that ultimately conquered her.

50
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Compare Sylvia to another, more powerful film about a tragic literary death: "Iris," about Iris Murdoch's descent into Alzheimer's, leaves you with an aching heart and reddened eyes. After the equally sorrowful Sylvia, we are entertained but unmoved.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
It's a coy, cautious film about a frank, fearless writer.

50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Broadly speaking, the popular literary biopic is a hopeless subgenre, but this account of the relationship between Sylvia Plath and husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes manages to test the rule thanks to its unusual seriousness and first-rate performances.

42
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
The film, bleeding its central character of all shades but black and darkest gray, fails as both biographical chronicle and filmed narrative.

40
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Sylvia also makes it seem as though, even at her happiest, she never received much pleasure from life. This makes for a long, slow procession to the oven door - so dark, somber, and lifeless is this well-intentioned biography.

40
Newsweek
David Ansen
The film's claustrophobic, color-coordinated dourness yields little illumination, and as the surging violins accompany our heroine's un-raveling mind, the movie comes queasily close to romanticizing suicide. I knew I was supposed to feel something, but what?

40
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
This feature glimpse into the Bell Jar is an exercise in drudgery, with nothing particularly insightful or revealing to say about the charter member of the Suicidal Poets Society and the artistic endeavor in which she would make her indelible mark.

40
Film Threat
Phil Hall
A mediocre film that presents the troubled poet Sylvia Plath as a jealous, possessive and irritating woman. It is hard to recall another biopic which is so unflattering to its subject.

38
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Never persuasively dramatize the agony, ecstasy and intricacy of composing poetry. Without that aesthetic component, all you see is that Plath's hunger for life couldn't compete with her death wish.

30
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Sylvia plays it safe, and in doing so it becomes little more than just another domestic melodrama devoid of life and, of all things, poetry.

30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Seems to avoid any kind of edgy, precedent-making attitude, some point of view that feels charged, divisive and consequently alive.


The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
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