The Bell Jar

1979
R
1h 47m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

As the horrors beneath the idealized 1950s come about, a successful young woman finds herself having a serious mental breakdown when she returns to New England.As the horrors beneath the idealized 1950s come about, a successful young woman finds herself having a serious mental breakdown when she returns to New England.As the horrors beneath the idealized 1950s come about, a successful young woman finds herself having a serious mental breakdown when she returns to New England.

Director
- Larry Peerce
Writers
- Sylvia Plath
- Marjorie Kellogg
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.2/10

317

YOUR RATING

Director
- Larry Peerce
Writers
- Sylvia Plath
- Marjorie Kellogg
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos5

‘Snow White’ Stars Test Their Wits

Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, and director Marc Webb take our Ultimate Disney Quiz.

Watch now

9:57

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
Director Larry Peerce and star Marilyn Hassett were married at the time of production.

Goofs
Early in the picture an early-'50s New York cab has a telephone number on it beginning with "555". The all-numeric phone numbers were not put into use for another decade.

Quotes
Esther Greenwood: To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.

Alternate versions
CBS edited 16 minutes from this film for its 1983 network television premiere.

Connections
Featured in Sneak Previews: The Bell Jar, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Dreamer, Old Boyfriends, Hurricane, Beyond The Door 2, Circle of Iron (1979)

Soundtracks
Here Comes The Night
Written and Performed by Janis Ian
Produced by Janis Ian and Ronald Frangipane
Arranged and Conducted by Ronald Frangipane (uncredited)

User reviews12

Featured review

Disappointing at best

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.