Sylvia

The life and work of poet Sylvia Plath have been the focus of controversy since her tragic suicide in 1963. It’s no surprise, then, that the movie version of her story courted a little controversy of its own. The film focuses on the tempestuous relationship between the American Plath (Paltrow) and her British husband, the future poet laureate of England Ted Hughes (Craig), after they meet at Cambridge. The production drew the wrath of Plath’s daughter Frieda Hughes, who refused all participation in the film and even published a poem earlier this year in the British magazine Tatler that branded the movie version of Plath a “Sylvia Suicide Doll.” (Ted Hughes passed away in 1998.) But those involved with the film insist that it’s less about Plath’s suicide than about one of the 20th century’s most passionate meetings of literary minds. “I always came from the place that these were two people who were very much in love,” Craig (Road to Perdition) says, “that this was very much a tragic love story, and that tragic love stories make good movies.”

FURTHER RELATIONS: Paltrow appears on the big screen for the first time with mother Danner (who plays Plath’s mother), but theirs wasn’t the only physical likeness noted on the set. “Gwyneth has an uncanny resemblance to Sylvia,” says Jeffs (2001’s Rain). “I didn’t realize until I saw her in costume and makeup. People who knew Sylvia at the time, when they visited the set, were completely knocked over.”