Conventional wisdom has it that one’s college years are the best of one’s life, a maxim Sylvia Plath: Girl Detective, above, seems to embrace.
The real Plath experienced deep depression and attempted suicide while a student at Smith College. Her fictional counterpart—-played by writer-director Mike Simses’ sister and co-producer, Kate—exudes a pert Nancy Drew spirit.
She juggles multiple admirers, glows with self-satisfaction when her poem, “I Thought That I Could Not Be Hurt,” receives an A+, and cooly holds her ground against statuesque and seemingly better-heeled classmate, Jane.
It doesn’t matter that it’s never particularly clear what mystery this girl detective is solving… the Case of the Missing Tuition Check perhaps.
(Eager to stay on the good side of her benefactress, Now, Voyager author Olive Higgins Prouty, she brightly acquiesces to a shot of insulin from a giant metal syringe.)
I love how she quotes from her own poetry with an intensity that should feel familiar to anyone who’s ever been called upon to read aloud from “Daddy” or “Lady Lazarus” in an undergraduate Women’s Studies class.
(Speaking of Daddy, Plath’s gets a notable cameo. Shades of Hamlet’s father, but funny!)
This Writers Guild Association New Media award winner is supported by high production values that range from tony locations and antique cars to Simses’ sheitel.
Find Sylvia Plath, Girl Detective added to our collection, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, Documentaries & More.
Related Content:
Hear Sylvia Plath Read Fifteen Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in 1962 Recording
Sylvia Plath’s 10 Back to School Commandments (1953)
Lady Lazarus: Watch an Experimental Film Spoken by Sylvia Plath
The Mirrors of Ingmar Bergman, Narrated with the Poetry of Sylvia Plath
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Her play, Fawnbook, opens in New York City later this fall. Follow her @AyunHalliday
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