Is Gwyneth Burning Bridges at Miramax?
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| AP | |
| Gwyneth Paltrow |
The occasion was the premiere of Paltrows new Focus/Universal feature, Sylvia, about the late famed poet Sylvia Plath. Paltrow, looking stunning in a black dress, had her blonde hair pulled into a long ponytail. She was accompanied by her mom, actress Blythe Danner, and boyfriend, Chris Martin of the rock group Coldplay.
Ironically, the small theater chosen for the event was the Tribeca Screening Room, just inside the Tribeca Film Center and co-owned by Miramax, which occupies much of the office space in the same building.
Paltrow came to prominence at Miramax with the movie Emma, won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, and has starred in several of their features including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Sliding Doors, Bounce and The Pallbearer. Insiders say she was paid a small fortune by the company last year to star in the ill-fated comedy A View From the Top. Shes currently filming the Broadway hit, Proof, for them in London.
But that didnt stop her from knocking the company in a speech before the 60 invited guests.
I just want to say that Focus Features is the best place in the world to make movies, she declared while introducing the film. They really care about the creative process. And I dont care what [expletive] building were in.
Paltrow also said that Sylvia was the best project shed ever worked on. With that she said she had to leave for London and miss the after-party at Soho House to appear in front a press junket.
Her comments were not the only disruptive moment during the evening, though. In a kind of karmic message, the fire alarm in the screening room went off twice toward the end of the film just as Plath is preparing to end her life. This entailed not only an alarm sounding, but a strobe light that no one knew how to disable.
After the screening, I asked producer Alison Owen -- who is also working on Proof -- what Paltrow meant by her remarks. I thought perhaps Miramax had passed on Sylvia when it was in the development stage.
Youll have to ask her, wont you? replied the blonde, British producer. Unfortunately, Paltrow was whisking her way across the pond by then.
And what about Sylvia?" Its supposed to be about the relationship between ill-fated poet Plath and her husband, English poet Ted Hughes. Their tempestuous relationship has been well-chronicled. He was an abuser and a cheater. She was chronically depressed. She left him in 1962, after roughly six years of marriage, but wrote long passages in her diaries that glorified him, according to the diaries editor.
Plath, famous for writing "The Bell Jar," killed herself in February 1963. Hughes died of cancer in 1998.
All that said, I know absolutely nothing more about these two after enduring Christine Jeffs two-hour miseryfest on screen. Paltrow is an intelligent actress so her work is always above average. But theres not much she can do with this rendering of Plath. The poet was surely no day at the beach, but in this film she is a sphinx, an unknowable enigma with no friends or family, no sense of humor, no redeeming features.
Why is she so depressed? Its mentioned once that her life changed when her father died -- she was 9 years old -- but that is never pursued. Indeed, we never learn anything about Plath prior to her meeting Hughes, and even then their marriage, the publication of The Bell Jar, her mothering of two children -- its all lost in a fog.
(When Plath finally does sit down to tell some of her fears,
it reminded me of a "Seinfeld" episode where George finally unloads all his
darkest thoughts to Jerry. Seinfelds response: Ive been scared
straight.)
There are some nice supporting touches: Jared
Harris as the couples friend, poet Al Alvarez; Danner
as Plaths mother; Michael Gambon as a neighbor. But theyre
all thrown away. Of all the participants, I suppose Daniel
Craig, who plays Hughes, comes off the worst. He mumbles his lines, is
hard to understand and is completely unsympathetic.
And certainly the most hilarious miscalculation is the swelling, soaring orchestral music by the usually reliable Gabriel Yared. Its not that the music is bad, its just totally wrong and much too loud.
Theres going to be a firestorm of criticism over this terrible, poorly executed movie. Three years ago Plaths diaries were published, but the film seems to not reflect any understanding of her, her work, her life or the marriage to Hughes. And then there are the missed opportunities: When Plath met Hughes she bit him on the cheek, drawing blood. What a great scene that would have been! Sadly, like so much of the really good stuff about Plath and Hughes, it is missing from Sylvia.
Plaths children, by the way, are protesting this film. Her daughter, Frieda, a poet, lodged a complaint last January in the British press about the whole project.
"I wrote a letter to them saying 'No, I don't want to collaborate,' and they kept coming back," she told the Sunday Times. "Why would I want to be involved in moments of my childhood which I never want to return to? I want nothing to do with this film. I will never, never in a million years, go to see it."
If I were Frieda Hughes, Id stick to that plan.
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