Mission of self-destruction

Sylvia

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Director: Christine Jeffs
Running time: 110 minutes
Language: English
Opens Dec. 25

"A writer should be remembered for his writing," Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, but in the world of movies many writers tend to be remembered for their personal lives and love affairs.

T. S. Eliot in "Tom and Viv" was a neurotic and cold man incapable of loving his wife/muse; Oscar Wilde in "Wilde" was tormented by his affection for a young and callous lord; and Iris Murdoch in "Iris" is shown either as a sexual free spirit reigning over the young dons at Oxford University, or as a befuddled, Alzheimer's-ridden old woman who couldn't string a sentence together.

In this sense, "Sylvia," a biopic of American poet and feminist icon Sylvia Plath, follows the movie-about-writers tradition, showing her to be at once beautiful, fashionable, despondent and despairing, but hardly ever portraying her engaged in what she is worshipped for -- her writing.