Life was too small to contain her...

Based on the most contentious literary romance in modern history, New Zealand director Christine Jeffs (RAIN) brings the tumultuous marriage of poets Sylvia Plath (most famous for her semi-autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar”) and Ted Hughes (“The Iron Giant”) to the screen in the long-awaited SYLVIA.

Until recently, the tragic story of Sylvia and Ted has been a secret closely guarded by the Hughes family. The publication of Hughes’ “Birthday Letters” in 1998, however, reveals the brilliance of Sylvia as one who had the ability but not the conviction of her own creativity.

A perfect embodiment of the ethereal yet dynamic Sylvia Plath, Gwyneth Paltrow (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) stars as the tormented poet and All- American beauty who arrives at Cambridge University on a Fulbright fellowship, hoping to leave her troubles in America, including two suicide attempts, behind her. In a now legendary meeting, Plath meets Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig, ROAD TO PERDITION) at a college mixer where they exchange a macabre kiss: a startling foreshadowing of the professional and romantic relationship to come.

Unable to resist their powerful creative and physical attraction, the two are married in what seems at first to be an idyllic union. Living an artists’ life in a small Devon village, the couple has two children while Hughes embarks on a path leading to literary stardom and an eventual appointment as Britain’s poet laureate.

Faced with the responsibilities of childrearing, and a recurring case of debilitating depression, however, Plath is subject to a mounting creative block. With an eye for talent that equaled his own creative genius, Hughes attempts to coax his wife into becoming the poet she is destined to be. Hughes is also, however, a man of considerable charm and legendary animal magnetism. Captured with brooding intensity by Daniel Craig, Hughes is a man for whom fidelity is a near impossibility. When Hughes meets Assia Wevill, his womanizing achieves a new apex and the two embark upon an infamous affair that sends Sylvia into a downward spiral from which she will never recover. We can only be thankful that before her demise Sylvia experienced afinal flood of creativity responsible for hundreds of poems and other works, including a collection that would posthumously earn her the Pulitzer Prize.

Seizing upon the role with a creative abandon not unlike that for which the poet herself was famous, Gwyneth Paltrow is sure to dazzle both newcomers to the story and self-professed “Plathologists.”

Director Christine Jeffs deftly mirrors the poet’s psychological highs and lows with fittingly poetic imagery and super-saturated cinematography.

As the dashing Welsh poet Ted Hughes, Daniel Craig tackles this formidable role with great skill and empathy. Although the real-life story becomes increasingly more horrifying, Jeffs chooses to focus on the creative dynamic between the two poets, a connection that not even Plath’s death can overshadow.

“Psychologically suspenseful! Gwyneth Paltrow is sexy and willful, boiling over with literary and erotic hunger!” - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

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