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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.

After enjoying Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in the recent ensemble comedy "A Prairie Home Companion," it was great to see their dramatic performances in "Sophie's Choice," the movie that made them famous. Here, they play Sophie and Nathan, a volatile young couple living in a Brooklyn boardinghouse in the summer of 1947. Their story, and eventually the story of the Polish Sophie's time in a concentration camp during World War II, is presented through the eyes of Stingo (Peter MacNichol), their young Southern neighbor.

Though other characters appear, especially during the flashbacks, "Sophie's Choice" is largely a three-person drama that relies on subtle interactions. Meryl Streep can always be counted on to give a nuanced performance, but here, especially, she raises the bar. Speaking three languages (including a very realistic portrayal of how foreigners can hesitate and hunt for words when speaking English), going from a haggard Auschwitz inmate to a pretty "blooming rose," consumed by guilt even during the madcap or romantic moments she shares with Nathan, she gives a brilliant performance of a very complex character. Her big scenes with Nazi officers are of course powerful, but I was equally struck by smaller moments: the heartbreaking little flashes of emotion that reveal Sophie's postwar wounds, or the extraordinary conversation she has with a Nazi's daughter.

Kline throws himself into the role of the "fatally glamorous" Nathan and also displays impressive range: he goes from charming to menacing. MacNichol is not up to these (admittedly high) standards. He can play the wide-eyed innocent, but he always seems somewhat thick-headed and lacking in passion. The movie would be more effective if Stingo seemed more truly changed by his experiences with Sophie and Nathan.

Despite Stingo's weakness as a character, I liked the unusual structure that reveals Sophie's story gradually, in flashbacks that draw closer and closer to the ultimate horror. The movie is nicely shot and some of the Brooklyn scenes look as though they actually could have come from a 1940s movie. But no director from the 1940s would have confronted the brutalities of the Holocaust so directly, and few actresses from any era could have given a performance like Streep's.

Without a doubt, Meryl Streep delivers the Greatest Performance By An Actress EVER - period.

The performance is totally naked, where you can almost feel her sorrow come right out of the screen. For all of the heart wrenching scenes in this movie, you never once feel as though Streep is going over-the-top. That says alot for someone who spends just about half of the time in her scenes with a tear in her eye. Everything about her performance just seems so effortless and natural. This especially shows when she is speaking German flawlessly, or English with a very convincing Polish accent.

The fact that Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol are not completely lost in this movie says alot for their performances. Kline himself delivers a great performance of a man suffering from delusions and bi-polar syndrome. It is one of his greatest performances as well. Peter MacNicol plays the role of a character who pales in comparison to the other characters. MacNicol has the somewhat undesirable task of having to play the character who carries the least amount of baggage. He therefore might be overlooked, when viewing at the movie as a whole. However, MacNicol does a great job with the character, not trying to make more out of it than it is supposed to be. His role is very important to this movie.

But the real story here is Streep. Her performance would be a stand out against any other performance in history. I honestly believe that. Streep just digs down deep here - delivering lines that just put a chill down your spine.

I don't know why I didn't want to see Sophie's Choice, not for years. I knew about Meryl Streep's performance, Alan J Pakula. Kevin Kline and I also knew that I had to see it eventually. Well, Christmas 2017 brought the shattering story into my life and now forever in my subconscious. Extraordinary is the first word that comes to mind. Meryl Streep's performance is out of this world. Every detail in her creation is a sort of link to her heart and therefore to mine. "Emil Dickens?" Her eyes, asking the question to the awful librarian will stay with me forever. Meryl Streep as Sophie asked that question 35 years ago. Amazing! What a devastating treat. It will make me go back to see all of her films., specially "A Cry In The Dark", "Plenty", "The Bridges Of Madison County" "Julia and Julia" even "Death Becomes Her" and "The Devil Wears Prada" Thank you Meryl Streep, thank you very much.

If the Oscars were to take every Best Actress winner ever -- from Janet Gaynor to Helen Hunt -- Meryl Streep would definitely have a good shot at winning against them. She gives a spellbinding, totally believable performance as Sophie, a timid Polish woman who befriends Stingo (Peter MacNicol), while she tells him of her tortured past in a concentration camp. As always, she does her foreign accent without fault, and puts her all in her performance, better than she's ever done. The movie itself is very good, too -- it may drag at times (at 2 1/2 hours), but definitely worth a look.

Comments from 2008 Viewing: Pakula skillfully brings the Styron novel about a woman's harrowing journey through WW2 to the screen. Streep's performance comes across as too mannered initially but must be considered a success ultimately, worthy of the Oscar she received. Although his character is supposed to be moody and manic, Kline is still much too animated and somewhat annoying as Streep's lover. MacNicol is fine, bringing much needed normalcy into the story as the young man befriended by the couple. The scene depicting the title of the movie is perhaps the most heart-wrenching in all of cinema. Hamlisch's elegiac score helps create a haunting atmosphere.

Comments from 2013 Viewing: The scenes in Brooklyn, which take up much of the film, are repetitious and somewhat dreary. The flashback scenes are disjointed and lacking in narrative flow. Pakula's direction seems heavy-handed and too respectful of the book. Rating reduced from 8 to 7.

Meryl Streep's performance as Sophie is simply the finest performance ever captured on film. Period. The subtlety and depth with which she reveals Sophie's wounds are simply spellbinding. She is at once radiantly beautiful, yet deeply wounded. She is charming, yet vulnerable. She is someone you want to love, yet someone whose pain keeps you at a distance.

This film takes the viewer on an intense emotional journey. Anyone, but especially anyone who is a parent, would have to be an emotional rock to not be absolutely haunted by this story. As much as I have studied and pondered the Holocaust, this film has connected me to those events more emotionally than I have ever been before.

This film, and Ms. Streep's performance, are a gift to humanity.

I Have been on a Holocaust movie kick recently. Wanting to watch every well known and made movie about the horrors and struggles of the holocaust. Sophies choice KIND OF gave me that. However I had to sift through a hefty hour and a half before getting to ANY actual impact full moments. Maybe my review doesn't mean much sense I haven't read the book but I will say for the majority of the movie I was struggling to stay awake with how slow and unnecessary the plot points are at times. Meryl Streep's acting was the most redeemable quality without a doubt and the moments that there were flash backs, I genuinely felt for her and the struggle as a whole. Overall the movie was okay but was drawn on for wayyyy too long.

'Sophie's Choice' should be compulsory viewing for any member of the voting panel who decide Academy Award winners. Quite simply, Meryl Streep's performance is THE benchmark for that 'Best Actress' category. I've seen a LOT of films, but not one performance has ever (and will ever) match her's. The manner in which she embodies Sophie goes beyond explanation. It is too accomplished and moving for words. It is almost offensive to think that Julia Roberts was awarded the same statue for ‘Erin Brockovich'!

Aside from the breathtaking central performance from the marvellous Ms Streep, there are so many other reasons to see this film. Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol are excellent, the cinematography is beautiful (particularly the shots of Brooklyn Bridge) the score is haunting ... I could go on.

Although certain critics have berated 'Sophie's Choice' as a mere platform for Meryl Streep as an actress, I urge you to overlook this view. The film succeeds admirably in bringing to horrific life an event in history which we should all be made aware of. It is undeniable that the phenomenal performance of MS leaves you spellbound, but NOT at the expense of being horrified and affected by what you have seen. All I can say to sum up is: just see it. An intelligent and profoundly moving film which will (I promise you) live on in your memory long after the closing credits.

Director Alan J. Pakula's film, a departure from his conspiracy and suspense dramas, is an adaptation of William Styron's best-selling novel of the same name. The story itself is based on his experiences as a southerner living in Brooklyn in 1947.

Pakula essentially preserves the structure of Styron's novel as it begins with the arrival of Stingo, an aspiring young writer, in post - WWII Brooklyn. After settling into a boarding house, he meets a unique couple that offers him alternating support and heartbreak.

He befriends the Jewish biologist, Nathan (Kevin Kline), and his girlfriend, Sophie Zawistowska (Meryl Streep), a Polish refugee and Auschwitz survivor. But their relationship is clouded by Nathan's violent behaviour, his uncontrollable jealousy, and Sophie's unexpressed but troubling memories of war. Her stories about her life during the war begin to unravel, exposing her as a liar and adding a tone of mystery to the relationship between Nathan, Stingo, and herself.

The film culminates in a flashback, reflecting the horrors of the war and the true cause of Sophie's insufferable pain and the bitter choice she had to make…

Streep deservedly won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Actress, bringing on the tears, playing both a naive girl and a worldly woman, transforming herself into a Holocaust victim and survivor. Speaking flawlessly in a Polish accent and acceptable German, she basically became Sophie Zawistowska.

And while Streep is undoubtedly the star, both Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol deserve credit for making 'Sophie's Choice' work as well as it does.

While overall this is Stingo's coming of age story, at its central core we get drawn into Sophie's saga. Pakula uses an Emily Dickinson poem to frame her story:

Ample make this bed.Make this bed with awe; In it wait till judgment break excellent and fair. Be its mattress straight, be its pillow round; Let no sunrise' yellow noise interrupt this ground.

The reference to the bed is the key to understanding Sophie's persona. She relies on Nathan's physical love, even as he abuses her, to cope with her Auschwitz ghosts.

Nestor Almendros' delicately lit cinematography, with its complex levels of saturation and subtle impositions of shadow, has often been meticulously replicated. The flesh tones are perfect, the image is solid and the colours, when in full bloom, are exquisitely formed. Equally effective is the use of music created by Marvin Hamlisch. Two themes are effectively intertwined throughout the story – both melancholic.

Though the film deals with the Holocaust, it doesn't graphically show Nazi horrors, but rather refers to them abstractly, making it more effective. 'Sophie's Choice' provides the emotional core of the horror and shows what devastating experiences the survivors must deal with. For Pakula, the film was an artistic highpoint and his most deeply felt work. Undoubtedly, 'Sophie's Choice' remains his most powerful, highly distinctive drama.

Wow! I am still in absolute shock from this film. Meryl Streep delivers a magnificent performance, with a flawless Polish accent. Kevin Kline and Peter Macnichol are terrific and together the three of them make a highly enjoyable film. The 'choice' Sophie has to make is shattering, a beautifully acted and unforgettable scene. Meryl Streep won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of the nazi camp survivor, this was richly deserved. The film was incredible with a great score and many moving emotional scenes. The emotions of the characthers, especially Sophie, are incredibly beliveable and bought to life. All 3 of the main performances are haunting and memorable. A must see.

Highly reccomended. 10/10

This movie is officially protected from withering criticism by its wisely taking out Streep Insurance (i.e. Arguably the greatest American female actor delivering arguably her greatest performance) and the cinematography from another film genius, Nestor Almendros, is simply stunning (safe to say Brooklyn has never looked lovelier). But one gets the distinct impression, as the film slowly expands to a gaseous two hours and forty minutes, that writer/director Alan J. Pakula, like a chef with a runaway souffle, lets the whole unwieldy film, from William Styron's unwieldy novel, get away from him. This feeling of directorial fumbling is especially strong in the second half, when the thing lurches rather than inexorably moves to what is intended to be a shattering conclusion and what we get instead is a rather hurried, perfunctory scene (ironic for such a long, slow film) featuring moustache twirling Nazi-ism and infant squawling, and the question "Is that all there is?" pervades the consciousness as we cut from the Holocaust to the Capitol Hotel in DC and a rather off putting sex scene between Streep and the annoyingly callow Peter MacNicol in what has to be one of cinema's dumber editorial decisions. You really wish someone had been around (producers Martin Starger and Keith Barish perhaps?) to gently remind Pakula, "We don't give a hush puppy about Stingo. Or his novel. What we care about are Sophie and her surviving kid and why he didn't make it to Brooklyn." A director in control of his or her material, a director who didn't conceitedly assign the adaptation to himself rather than to a pro like Alvin Sergeant or Jay Presson Allen, would have known how to deal with these rather important matters and how to tell this story effectively and affectingly. C plus.

PS...It took me two days to get Marvin Hamlisch's cloying theme out of my head. This is one better than his equally syrupy theme to "The Swimmer".

I can't understand the hype surrounding this movie. The performances were okay, leaning towards over exaggerated. I can understand the anguish over Sophie's sacrifice, but the film defining scene was barely a few minutes long. An hour could have easily been trimmed from the movie without any real degradation of the storyline. All of the pain of the decision being built up seemed inconsequential.

This is still one of my favorite movies of all time ....and absolutely the best acting by an actress in all the years since then. Streep is magnificent and flawless. The "choice" scene was so horrifying to me (a mother of a young son and daughter at the time) that it took me several years before I could watch the movie without skipping past that part. It is such a small scene, yet its impact was so haunting and so horrifying - I can't think of any other scene in a movie that has affected me like that. Kline was terrific as well, and the musical score is beautiful and memorable. All in all, a wonderful film, and a perfect 10 from me. What a gifted actress!

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.....

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!!!

This movie is about characters. It's really well acted and you're just observing them. I think some of the narration takes away from the experience, and the poems aren't given enough attention to be justified (both less or more attention would have been better). If someone asked me if this movie was based off a book, I would easily be able to recognize it, it's strongly influenced.

But the movie is strongly human. The acting is phenomenal and the ideas are there, but I feel like the movie should have been able to get more out of me. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I feel like there's some essence of something that's missing. It might have to do with. It might have to do with how Nathan Landau doesn't feel like a character nearly as much as the other two, and that he's too binary in each scene he's in. He's either loving and caring or bombastic and an asshole. But he's never erratic and bouncing between the two (sometimes he shifts from one to the other, but it always seems calculated, which strikes me as wrong for the way I see the character). I wish he was more complex.

I feel like with a little more cinematography or directing or editing I could have been truly amazed. Every one of them is competent, but none feel amazing. The movie is good, I just wish there was a little more to elevate that last bit.

Rarely would I give a film a rating of 10 as that is perfection. Sophie's Choice is and always will be a classic film, a film that will be watched decades from now by other generations. Meryl Streep is simply one of the greatest actresses of our time and has truly made her mark. Sophie's Choice is not another Holocaust film. In fact most of the movie doesn't refer to the holocaust but of Sophie, the character so brilliantly created by William Styron in his novel 'Sophie's Choice' and beautifully adapted into a screen play. We see Sophie through the eyes of Stingo, the young writer from the south who becomes infatuated with Sophie. Little by little Sophie's story is revealed. The title 'Sophie's Choice' refers to a particular choice made in the film by Sophie but in my eyes there are many choices that Sophie makes through out this film. Meryl Streep completely transformed herself into this character which she won the Acadamy Award for Best Actress and rightfully so. I don't think anybody else could have created Sophie as Streep did. Sophie lives for Nathan, the man she claims saved her life 6 months after coming to America. Sophie and Nathan's relationship is a roller coaster of highs and extreme lows. Stingo, their best friend is constantly on the outside looking in at the complex characters of Sophie and Nathan. This is a beautiful film as Sophie is a beautiful character you can't help but love and feel her pain.

I realize I will be in the minority but personally, I did not care for this film. Meryl Streep won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Sophie, a woman forced to make a gut wrenching decision in a concentration camp. Streep is not normally my favorite actress, though I did like her in Music of the Heart. I couldn't really decide here whether this was a superb portrayal of Sophie's devastating choice, or whether my judgment was clouded by all my past negative impressions of Streep tending to overact.

The story revolves around a Polish refugee, Sophie, who is haunted by past concentration camp experiences, in her modern relationship with a schizophrenic American Jew, Nathan, who is obsessed with the Holocaust and is abusive to her. The story is related by their mutual friend, Stingo, a Southern writer who has come to post war New York.

The flashback scenes to Sophie's Auschwitz days are unforgettable and her choice horrific, but in my opinion, her story would have been infinitely more powerful if the entire movie had been set back in Nazi Poland, where she served as Rudolh Hoess's secretary due to her fluency in German. I completely agree with a few others, who also find it's an effective one third of a movie, the concentration camp portion. Much of the film is boring, as we await the gripping climax.

I am a mother and certainly find Sophie's choice a haunting one but this movie not at all impressive. The only character of interest in the post war setting (the majority of the picture) is Sophie herself. It does indeed diminish Sophie's dramatic tale, that her woeful experiences (in fact, a living death) are placed on equal par with all the assorted psychological jumble of Nathan's admittedly sad (but apparently atypical) paranoid schizophrenia and, worse, the mindless tittle tattle of Stingo's love & sex life.