The Bell Jar

While Marilyn Hassett is a fine actress (she's absolutely wonderful as Jill Kinmont in the "Other Side of the Mountain" movies), she was totally miscast in "The Bell Jar". According to the book, the character of Esther Greenwood was nineteen, and Ms. Hassett was almost thirty-two at the time of this filming. Sylvia Plath's novel is a haunting, harrowing, timeless classic, and the film reflected none of that. It was a mess. Read the book instead.

I saw this movie when it first came out, before I had read the book. It's impossible to capture the immensity of Esther's pain as she staggers toward oblivion, but watching the movie gave me a definite sense of a life in utter chaos. Yes, the film is flawed, but in my mind it stands alone as a separate entity. Marilyn Hassett's portrayal of Esther is terrifying--I haven't empathized so completely with a character on the brink of dementia since Kathleen Quinlan as Deborah in "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden." The supporting cast is equally solid--it's not their fault that there's just too much ground for one little movie to cover. Donna Mitchell stays in my mind as creating, in Joan's character, a young woman as doomed and in as much mental disarray as Esther. Mitchell is an amazingly underrated (and under-used) actress. I'm not sure if our boys would have given it two thumbs up, but it remains one of my closet classics.

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

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.