Poetry in motion

When Ted Hughes died in 1998, the way was clear for a biopic of the poet laureate's famously stormy marriage to fellow poet Sylvia Plath - a union that ended after six years with his defection and her suicide. Their murky history throws up a lot of universal questions about depression, the sex war and the tendency of gifted women to get snagged by the pram in the hall while their men go on to glory, riches and - usually - other women. But in Sylvia, Christine Jeffs focuses on the traditional, starcrossed lovers aspect of their story, and the result is soft soap indeed.

Gwyneth Paltrow does well playing Sylvia as a likeable American with a slightly possessive streak (though an unlikely vessel for Plath's pounding poetry); Daniel Craig is charming as Ted, a walking emblem of masculinity.

But there's little evidence that Plath was likeable or Hughes charming: this film is all Hollywood in both characterisation and casting. It's perfectly watchable, but lacks sulphur. Jeffs's strength is in the details, where she cleverly uses our foreknowledge to turn the most mundane movements (loosening a tie, checking milk temperature on a wrist) into sinister hints of the tragedy to come.