Sylvia

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 2003, 110 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

The year is 1956. Sylvia Plath is studying at England´s prestigious Cambridge University and making her first attempts at writing. She meets a poet named Ted Hughes, and a fateful love is born which impacts the rest of her life. At first Ted too is powerfully affected by this romantic attachment with a beautiful and intelligent woman who understands his work and admires him. But after the wedding things change. Sylvia wants to return to the United States to settle near her mother; Ted would rather remain in England. Moreover, he returns to his bachelor ways. The psychologically unstable Sylvia cannot accept her husband´s philandering. She seeks solace in poetry and in her own writings; she writes the collection Ariel, a work widely read in Great Britain today, but the dream for happiness begins to dissolve… Both romance and tragedy, this film story begins to unveil the myth about the legendary American writer, tracing the development of one of the most destructive love affairs of our time. Director Christine Jeffs chose Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig as her leads.

About the director

Christine Jeffs (b. 1963, Lower Hutt, New Zealand) graduated in sociology and geography from Massey University, and started in film as an assistant editor. In 1990 she began studies at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, graduating in film editing. She concurrently wrote screenplays and in 1994 shot her first short film, Stroke. She debuted in features in 2001 with Rain, shown at Cannes in the Director´s Fortnight section and in the Horizons section at the Karlovy Vary IFF 2002. Sylvia is her second feature.