The Bell Jar

Remember seeing this film years ago and it had a lasting impression on me! I remember the wonderful performance of Marilyn Hassett as Esther and Julie Harris as her mother! The breakdown of the main character was horrorfing and so well acted! I wish this was on video! Whatever happened to Marilyn Hassett she had a real promising career and what beautiful hair!

i saw this a few months ago and i hope i never will have to again...i was not expecting something so hideously bad and corny....julie harris couldn't even save it...she was the only one who acted with some dignity...everything in the movie is jumbled and done wrong...the book is amazing, don't get me wrong, i love it to death..it's one of my all-time favourites, absolutely brilliant...but i find it sad how terrible the only movie it was made into is....i could've done a better job with the idea and i don't even know the first thing about moviemaking

This is one of the worst films I've ever seen. I looked into it mainly out of a morbid curiosity since I loved the novel, and I wish I hadn't. I turned it off after a little less than an hour, though I wanted to turn it off after five minutes. I wish I had. It disregards the novel a lot and changes all sorts of factors. Unless the film managed to redeem itself in the last 50 or so minutes (which would be impossible) I would in no way recommend this. Its an insult to one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. I don't think, as many people say that it is, that "The Bell Jar" is necessarily unfilmable, but this particular rendition could have been done without. I'd almost like to see this one day in the hands of a director and screenwriter who can do it justice.

Jameson Parker And Marilyn Hassett are the screen's most unbelievable couple since John Travolta and Lily Tomlin. Larry Peerce's direction wavers uncontrollably between black farce and Roman tragedy. Robert Klein certainly think it's the former and his self-centered performance in a minor role underscores the total lack of balance and chemistry between the players in the film. Normally, I don't like to let myself get so ascerbic, but The Bell Jar is one of my all-time favorite books, and to watch what they did with it makes me literally crazy.

When they say that a book is always better than the film adaptation, "The Bell Jar" is a movie that can support that opinion to its highest degree. Sylvia Plath`s American classic, "The Bell Jar", is a vivid, disturbing and brutally honest depiction of a young woman`s plunge towards insanity in the 1950`s, and it has become my favourite book of all time. The film version, however, failed miserably in trying to tranfer the book onto the big screen. The original story was cut up so badly for the film, you sometimes can`t even tell if they`re the same story. The acting by the main character`s was mediocre at best, and worst of all, the movie completely lacked the poetic and evocative spirit that made the book special. Watching "The Bell Jar" just isn`t the same as reading the book, trust me when I say the book is much better.