MovieChat Forums > Sylvia (2003) Discussion > Hollywood will speak and they will liste...

Hollywood will speak and they will listen?...

posted 21 years ago by twmpyn_koala
3 replies | jump to latest

personally, i do not understand the fuss that is surrounding this whole 'gwyneth paltrow is not worthy to play sylvia plath' debate from some people...

in a nutshell, i think that its easy to say that NOBODY is worthy to play ANYBODY ELSE in any type of media ever, simply because nobody can ever totally be 100% accurate on someone else...

all these people can do is TRY to serve up a tiny fragment of the person they are portraying...i think thats about the maximum anybody can ever do...

whilst i agree that gwyneth paltrow would not have been seen in my mind as the perfect person to play plath, who could have been seen as perfect?...whatever the outcome, people will always have their opinions on the left and right sides...and they are completely entitled to them...

as for the whole narrative surrounding this film, it will be interesting to see...

something gets me, though...people have already said how it would/will be impossible to make a film based on the romantic frolics of hughes and plath because so little is known about the actual subject of it...well, couldnt the same argument also be applied to the fact that it would be impossible to make a film based purely on plaths suicide?...after all, nobody could actually ever fully know what plath was thinking...i mean, really thinking...its all just guesswork in reality...

the greatest thing that should come out of this film is a lot more people will be turned on and tuned in to the works of BOTH plath and hughes...

and for that i say yay! :)...

[–] dollydaze78 21 years ago

I agree with you for the most part, with the exception of your last comment. I doubt "Sylvia" will attract a large crowd, being labeled an "art film." I imagine that the majority of its audience will already by a fan pr, or at familiar with, Plath and/or Hughes. :(

You never know, though...

On another note, I've been pondering whether adapting "The Bell Jar" would be an easier project than this. Granted, it's not entirely autobiographical, but the account seems pretty close compared to her journals. This way it would be probably a more faithful adaptation to her life, but do you think it would be much harder to film? Just curious about others' opinions.

[–] 21 years ago

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[–] jhb4731 21 years ago

saw it last night, gwyneth is really excellent, will def. be nominated for oscar. she really manages to start out beautiful and in the end looks sallow, almost ugly, and completely mad. don't know if it was makeup or what, but pretty remarkable resemblance. more about the relationship than her poetry, much better than reviews had led me to believe.