Sophie's Choice

Sophie's Choice is one of those films I always meant to watch, and finally got the chance. It is best to go into it with as little idea as to what it's about as possible, as it's a slow film with a lot of layers that get peeled off one by one. A young would-be-author from the South moves to Brooklyn and befriends his neighbors, the couple Nathan and Sophie. All three hit it off, but Nathan's bipolar tendencies do puncture their friendship at times. Sophie, however, is a calm soul as kind as she is tortured by her past in Auschwitz. As the author, Stingo, gets to know them better, he is also taken deeper and deeper into Sophie's past, where a hidden pain resides. Sophie's Choice brilliantly captures two polar opposite worlds. The colourful and tranquil Brooklyn is contrasted strikingly by a late 1930s Poland occupied by Nazis, where the colour drains so much out of the film that any further and it would be black-and-white. The present in Brooklyn is a good haven to have and catch our breath between glimpses into Sophie's horrible past. At the end of the day, in spite of the emotionally shattering story, Sophie's Choice is a story about hope and redemption. The performances certainly helped. Peter MacNicol and Kevin Kline are both wonderful as polar opposite personalities, united by a common love for literature. But Meryl Streep is utterly mesmerizing as Sophie. It's not for no reason that this was one of those Oscar-nominated performances of hers that gave that extra edge and got her the statue. All of Sophie's mannerisms, her accent, her speaking German and Polish, her searching for words in English to express what she wants to say, her restrained kindness, her pain; none of it overdone. The director even trusted Streep enough to take long shots with her as she gets into deep characterization. This is quite simply one of the finest female performances in cinema. I did fear, throughout the film, what exactly Sophie's choice was, and I was right, for it is a scene that crushes your heart. But the film comes together in the end and ends in an emotionally satisfying way in spite of everything. Steel yourself for an emotional journey and give Sophie's Choice a view, it's a film as uplifting as it is depressing, and unmissable for cinema buffs.

Arguably Meryl Streep's most compelling performance...and lord knows the woman has turned in a few during her career! I found myself delighted, beguiled, enchanted, crushed and ultimately reduced to a drained and empty shell by the film's end; it took several days thereafter to fully recover. Her vulnerability and honesty are as inescapable as her demons. And you cannot help but be drawn into such a real sense of both conflict & compassion, duty and despair...this film completely melted my face off while cementing an admiration and awe I rarely experience from an actor's performance. All due respect to both Kline & MacNichol for their fine portrayals, but really the movie begins and ends with Streep's haunting, brilliant and enormously human turn as Sophie! This is a "must see" film albeit a gut wrenching experience!!! Totally amazing!!!

How did Streep ever get an Oscar for this? While her inconsistent dialogue was not her fault, her inconsistant accent was all on her. The story was plodding and boring. Instead of a 2 1/2 hour movie, this should have been a Lifetime movie of the week, running no more than 1 1/2 hours with commercials.

Director Alan Pakula must have been falling over himself with delight at the presence of his three main actors. Each give impressive performances, but it is Streep's that takes the breath away. So much has been written already about her flawless depiction of Sophie, who has to be the most heartbreaking character ever seen on film; I can only add my support to the view that Streep here gives the best performance ever seen by an actor. Additionally, I agree that the Academy should look at this performance as the watermark of the Best Actress Oscar. Inevitably, no one will ever match it, but to think Gwyneth Paltrow won the same award for her role in "Shakespeare in Love" is laughable. Kevin Kline is brilliant as the chilling yet endearing Nathan, whilst Peter MacNicol is the character whose superb narration and acting transmits us into the movie. I noticed that the morose Pauline Kael, the most ludicrously over-respected film critic of all time, once again shows her cynicism in finding much fault with the movie: I will have none of it: it is utterly moving, without having to resort to cliché or overloud, haunting music to influence our emotions. Quite simply, the subject matter - Sophie's tragic life and (in)ability to come to terms with what has happened to her - is enough to do this on its own. The final frame is to me, perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen, and the film will stay with the viewer long after.

In my opinion - Out of this 1982 film's decidedly over-long 2-hour & 30-minute running time, only 30 of those minutes made Sophie's Choice worth watching. These 30 minutes were the moments (told in very vivid flashbacks) when the guilt-ridden Sophie eventually recalls her experiences as a young, Polish woman, and mother, in war-torn Germany and what "choices" she was inevitably forced to make. It took this film 85 minutes of pure drudgery before Sophie finally got around to telling her harrowing story about "choice". To say that this movie was marred beyond belief by Kevin Kline's absolutely annoying, over-the-top portrayal of the Nathan Landau character would truly be an understatement. Kline was an ultimate ass in this picture. Needless to say, I hated him, like you wouldn't believe. As well - Drab, dull actor Peter MacNicol was utterly forgettable as the Stingo character who befriends Sophie and learns of her deep, dark secret. And, finally - I thought Meryl Streep speaking broken-English with a Polish accent was pretty disappointing. Half the time I couldn't understand what the hell she was saying. All-in-all - I do not recommend this movie at all. It is far too over-rated, if you ask me.

Meryl Streep is fantastic, always convincing as a Polish survivor of a concentration camp. Rest of the movie is at turns silly, grating, and maudlin. Seems inappropriate to make the real life outrages of the Holocaust fodder for a sappy southern boy's bildungsroman. "Stingo" is an annoying Thomas Wolfe stereotype of the sensitive genius writer; unfortunately we are subjected to examples of his overwrought purple prose in voiceovers that sound lifted from The Waltons. If we only could have been spared the confession that his climatic tryst with Sophie was the end of his virginity; I had bad flashbacks to "Summer of 42". Still gets four stars because Streep is just so good.

How Meryl Streep beat out Jessica Lange for the Best Actress in 1982 is beyond me. Once again, Streep pulls out one of her phony-baloney accents with the emotional range of a stuffed tortoise. What do people see in this claptrap? Stingo was well-cast, but as usual Kevin Kline was annoying, loud, pretentious, while eating the scenery. What is with this guy? The fact that this was even nominated shows how bad the Academy had slipped by the early 80's. Junk is junk. Streep and Kline are portrayed as intellectual fun-loving free spirits, when they're really just a couple of neurotic con artists. Forget this one! I gave this a 3 because of the cinematography and Stingo.

Portraying a Polish-Catholic Concentration Camp survivor now living in Brooklyn 1947, Meryl Streep admirably keeps a haunted look in her eyes--and in her forlorn smile--throughout all the fabricated histrionics of this Alan J. Pakula "prestige" picture. It's a commendable acting job, most especially because nothing else in this vehicle quite comes off. Sophie, struggling with her broken English during her initial days in New York, is 'rescued' (from despair, from hopelessness) by a combustible genius (Kevin Kline), and soon they are reading literature and poetry to each other in his bed. The details of their love-hate relationship come spilling out to a Southern writer (Peter MacNicol) who has rented a room in the same building as the couple. William Styron's book has become an embalmed actors' showcase, with the three principals each doing contemplative-turned-combative bits of character business, to little avail. There are two or three scenes that put enormous demands on Sophie (and Streep the actress), and the woman simply does not disappoint (my favorite was an early flashback scene wherein she attempts to check out a book by Emily Dickinson but doesn't have the author's name right). Still, Pakula paces the melodramatics with funereal solemnity, and the too-careful, too-rigid art direction and cinematography make the proceedings look like a waxworks museum. Kline cannot get a grip on his tortured Nathan, and for good reason: the character is a writer's contrivance (bombast conjured up out of mental illness), while MacNicol has some strong early scenes but eventually plays third-wheel (not an enviable position). Much discussion was made of Streep's letter-perfect accent and her scenes as a prisoner, and indeed she's quite remarkable; however, Sophie isn't allowed to bloom as a person. Streep makes her tremulous and lovely, nervous and chatty while also politely flustered, and there are moments when she's radiant. Unfortunately, there's nothing gripping or substantial in the writing to help the actress carry the weight of a long, heavy Oscar-contender. We understand right away that Sophie is a survivor with an enormous heart...Pakula doesn't give us anything else to ponder except romantic heartbreak tinged with masochism. ** from ****

Although achingly literary at times, moments of true emotional power are rendered by fluid storytelling, Nestor Almendros's haunting cinematography, Marvin Hamlisch's quietly effecting score, a touching performance by Peter MacNichol, and a seminal performance by Meryl Streep; one that Kim Stanley (the celebrated actress/teacher and Oscar nominated mother to Jessica Lange in 'Frances' of the same year) proclaimed, "the titanic portrayal of her generation." No matter what your initial feelings about this film, I encourage you to go back and take in Streep's dark dance of loss, madness and, finally, sorrowful redemption.

...all of the characters in this astounding book/movie were as good or as unimportant as viewers/readers found them to be, simply because William Styron developed them that way: Stingo WAS an unexperienced nerd, having lived an idyllic life in the South with nothing happening in his life, yet aspired to write the Great American Novel; how perfect for a virginous male to so fortunate to live with people who educate him what a horrendous journey life can be. McNichols was perfect for this role, because he was the opposite of Sophie. Nathan was mad and KNEW he was mad, longing with all his soul to be otherwise; a little madness drives people to do astounding things. Kline was perfect; what a shame he has never found another role as good. Sophie was the haunted lady whose life made her that way; Styron's development of her character is masterful. I read an interview in which he was asked how he felt his novel was presented in the film. His reply, "I took the money and ran." He could foresee there would be controversy over his work. Some viewers, especially the younger ones, cannot appreciate how actresses have developed over the life-time of movie-making. They should watch some of the "silent" films to learn that mime was the only way to express an emotion. Mellodrama, intentionally so - yet, look at the entire work of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as examples of contrived performances. They were, at last, able to confront one another in "Baby Jane" - attempting to "out-drama" one another made it the wonderful film it is. There is simply no other actress, that we know of, who is more talented a performer than Streep. Unlike Davis and Crawford, she is not concerned about her "star-power". She becomes whatever character she is playing, no matter if we like them or not. SO WHAT if "Sophie's Choice" was a vehicle to demonstrate her power? Please write another !! William Styron, stand forth ! Because of her absorption into her characters and the many nuances she developed in "Choice", take a look at "The Deer Hunter" to see how powerfully she played an un-extraordinarily plain woman perfectly. Under-playing a character, to make you believe people are actually like that, is the mark of a great actress. I ardently pray there will be another role for Ms. Streep - even in her older years - that will allow us to become totally engrossed, to get outside of our own lives, to become completely destroyed, delirious, shattered just for a couple of hours, to realize there is still such talent in the world - THAT WE CAN AFFORD TO WATCH, at least.....thank heavens for this magical film.....