91 Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman This is the richest role Paltrow has had since ''Shakespeare in Love,'' and she rises to the challenge. She digs deep into Plath's mercurial nature, giving us a Sylvia who's fiercely independent and alive yet burdened with demons of insecurity that bubble up in a rage. Read full review
75 Boston Globe | Wesley Morris At heart, Sylvia is constructed as a psychological suspense film framed around the ambiguities of Hughes's infidelity and Plath's resulting paranoia. So at its strangest, the movie is a potboiler. Read full review
75 Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert For those who have read the poets and are curious about their lives, Sylvia provides illustrations for the biographies we carry in our minds. Read full review
63 New York Daily News | Jack Mathews Paltrow does this role exceptionally well, but it is underwritten. Read full review