Not really disappointing viewing, given I was well aware of the critical and commercial caning this copped on release, but as a fan of Plath I was left wistfully wanting more. A more appropriate title for Christine Jeffs' film would have been "Ted and Sylvia" as we only pick up poet Sylvia Plath's (Gwyneth Paltrow) life from the time when she met fellow poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig). The film charts the passionate yet rocky relationship of the literary couple, with Hughes' extra-marital affairs and Plath's mental instabilities causing the marriage to breakdown. We all know how it ends of course, with Plath's suicide.

"Sylvia" has much of the same problems that the recent John Maybury film looking at Dylan Thomas' life and loves, "The Edge Of Love", had. At times its beautiful and haunting, but really just inconsequential overall. We spend so much time with Plath and Hughes but we never really get close to either of them. Plath was not just a tragic talent, her poetry and novel are filled with disturbing, blunt images but also a great raw passion for experience and life. The film becomes a dreary look at adultery rather than showing us anything new about Plath, or her relationship with Hughes. Paltrow and Craig are rather good in their roles, but are let down by the writing (how ironic!)The film goes around in circles but we never really get anywhere.

This is a movie that probably should have been longer. Unless you are an expert on Sylvia Plath, not enough information is provided on her earlier childhood, fathers death, etc, that would explain her preoccupation with suicide and death. I understand that Ms Plath's family would not cooperate with this film, and it shows.

What makes poetry a special art form? Answers might include bringing together extremes of joy and despair within a couple of lines, offering an alternative to rational thought, enriching our outlook and understanding in ways that prose would struggle to equal. Poetry can provide a single phrase or sentence that is easily remembered and somehow unlocks difficult-to-express inner states, just as a song can (and poetry is the basis of songs). It offers a freedom of expression where you don't need to explain every aspect of what you are saying - it urges the listener to grasp a semi-spoken truth or idea.

That's my rough guess. I've got over 40 books of poetry on my bookshelf at the last count, yet I'm no literary expert and appreciate poetry in a very simple way. Most people might agree that poetry offers something special, so a film celebrating the life of a famous poet might be expected to bring us a glimmer of that something.

Sylvia Plath has been championed not only as a poet but as a sort of ‘feminist' – a cry on behalf of women treated as a commodity, subjugated by an unfair male-dominated system. Cast in the lead role, Gwyneth Paltrow's Plath focuses much attention on how downtrodden she was, chained to two children, overshadowed by a brilliant and celebrated Ted Hughes, struggling with bitterness, jealousy, mental instability and a less than attractive persona. We also get the occasional poetic outburst, from who-can-recite-poetry-fastest undergrad shenanigans to romanticised performances of Chaucer (addressed to an audience of watching cows whilst floating downstream in a boat). All punctuated with soft-focus shots of a naked Plath/Paltrow, hysterical and often violent outbursts at Hughes, and scenes of a generally uninteresting and uninspiring life of moderate wretchedness. The only thing that distinguishes Sylvia from the now-unfashionable kitchen sink drama is that its central character is called Sylvia Plath.

So is the film worthy of the title? In A Beautiful Mind, we learnt of the joy of mathematics, Lunzhin Defence championed the addictive mysteries of chess, and Dead Poets Society made us lift our eyes to literary horizons that could inspire the dullest of minds. Sylvia was limited, perhaps, by the refusal of her daughter to allow much of Plath's poetry to be used in the film but, for whatever reason, it has failed to be more than a rather humdrum biopic. It offers little insight into her poetry or the magic of poetry generally, and adds little of interest about the historical figure that doesn't apply to millions of women. If any deep philosophical statement can be drawn from this, the film certainly doesn't make it, poetically or otherwise. Sadly, it would seem that the words of Sylvia Plath's daughter almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy: "Now they want to make a film . .. They think I should give them my mother's words . . . To fill the mouth of their monster . . . Their Sylvia Suicide Doll." Whilst not quite an empty doll, Sylvia is maybe an arm or leg short of a manikin.