Sophie’s Choice

If there was ever an actress that would never need a proper introduction anymore since her name had literally been steam pressed into cinema’s literal brain, it was Meryl Streep. Essentially becoming what many consider to be a ‘’Goddess of acting’’, Streep has made a name for herself with several infamous roles (both on a dramatic and a less extreme level) and has managed to captivate audiences throughout the years with her range, talent for accents and ability to not be type casted into specific parts like other actresses during the Golden or Silver age of Hollywood. One of her other most well-known aspects is her comically large number of Oscar nominations (being nominated twenty times and winning three) and of those nominations, the three she won for are often considered her actual best work as an actress. While she has fans for her other roles which are praised moreso for their enjoyment level, these performances stood out as more impactful. The ones in question were for The Iron Lady, where she played Margaret Thatcher, Kramer vs Kramer where she played a mother who abandoned her husband and child, and the movie of discussion today and arguably one of her most famous roles, Sophie’s Choice. Set during the late 1940s, a young aspiring novelist named Stingo (played by Peter MacNicol) moves to a share house in Brooklyn to work on his book and makes friends with his upstairs neighbor Polish immigrant Sophie Zawistowska (played by Meryl Streep) and her Jewish boyfriend, Nathan (played by Kevin Kline). While the three seem to hit it off early on and soon become best friends (often times maybe even feeling more than that), it starts to become clear that Nathan and Sophie are hiding something. Nathan’s constant mood swings from casually friendly and slightly overly energized to unwaveringly jealous and aggressive makes him feel more antagonistic, and Sophie’s quiet often passive demeanor clearly shows signs of a tragic past, which as the film continues, reveals itself as it details the pain she suffered through a concentration camp and the choice that effectively ruined her life forever. Based on a novel written by William Styron, Sophie’s Choice was a massively successful movie when it came out, with specific praise to Streep’s portrayal of the titular character. Whether people have a specific favourite or not, this is usually considered the role that made Streep as popular as she was.

The story seems to follow the original novel pretty tightly, sticking to the themes and ideas that are brought up from the story and mapping it out nicely into a film’s length. It isn’t a story that is solely based around World War II or even much about Nazi Germany, but rather the consequences of said event and how it shaped some of the main characters. While this is good in theory, it doesn’t fully utilize this idea and is somewhat hampered by the original story’s layout, pacing and even choice of focus. The movie paces out when to reveal its main story-line really awkwardly and instead spends a lot more time in the present with these three characters which isn’t nearly as interesting as what is being discovered about Sophie. It’s almost like the film is holding the backstory hostage for a surprise reveal at the end (even though it’s pretty obvious what happens around the halfway point). Its insistence of remaining in this modern perspective would be fine if it added something to the plot’s themes or if it gave some form of context into how she was shaped by these tragic events, but it never really does. It’s so heavily focused on this strange almost love-triangle which doesn’t come across as strongly as the film thinks it does and it honestly takes time away from development for the characters and proper insight into them. It is a shame as the backstory is an interesting one and there are aspects of this plot that clearly have unique elements to it that don’t feel familiar to other Nazi-based movies of the time, it has a different vision and angle while still showing the tragedy and horror of the event. The film oddly stands on a pedestal because of Streep’s involvement, to the point that not a lot of people talk much about what else it has to offer, essential creating a picture where the whole draw comes from its big performance instead of what its about. This doesn’t hinder the movie in the long run, but it paints a pictures into people’s head of what to or not to expect.

Obviously, Streep is the key player in this film and is one of the main headliners for the movie in Oscar seasons and when people remember it years later. Sophie’s name is front and centre as the title, so logically the movie should have her as the lead protagonist for the film, but in a bizarre twist from both the book and this film, that isn’t the case. The character of Stingo (weird name as is it) acts as the film’s main character; essentially being an audience surrogate for the other characters to talk to and deliver exposition to in a way that doesn’t feel incredibly forced. Even for that reason, it really doesn’t work in this movie. Not only does it seem odd to bring focus and attention away from the character who the book is named after and the one who has the most interesting backstory, but the character of focus is easily one of the worst parts in this movie. Peter MacNicol is awful in this movie; not so much in terms of acting which he does perfectly fine, but his character is so bland and boring that it literally feels like its just some random person they shoved into the story so that other people can tell stuff to him, so the audience knows what’s going on. He doesn’t share any chemistry with Streep so a love triangle never feels like its going to happen, his backstory is as deep as ‘’I want to write a book, but I can’t’, which is about as enthralling as it sounds, and though MacNichol’s acting is perfectly passable, it gets quickly overshadow by his two co-stars who are light-years more interesting. Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep do a very good job with their roles and bring a lot of human vulnerability to their performances. Kline’s ability to appear decent and overly caring one moment to uncomfortably sadistic in the other makes him surprisingly more engaging to watch than expected, as his mental issues make him feel like more than just some drunk abusive boyfriend, and Streep’s demeanor and surprisingly effective accent and handling of German is pretty effective. It’s a shame that these characters don’t have much personality outside of their obvious backstories (especially Streep), but they are still decently realized characters to watch and marvel at.

While the film doesn’t feel like it suffers too strongly from its adaptation from book to movie, it can be felt in how much the movie is kind of lacking in a visual language. What that means is that the movie isn’t really taking advantage of its medium and it doesn’t really have that much  variety in its shots done by Nestor Almendros or in its editing done by Evan A. Lottman. Sometimes they’ll repeat an establishing shot for no particular reason, sometimes shots will have random edits throughout to another person just to break up the long take, and sometimes it doesn’t even do that, and just has an actor stare at the screen like they’re talking to the audience for a good long time. This movie clearly doesn’t need immaculate camerawork to make it more engaging and the slower more reserved style does work for the dramatic moments, but it is a sign that it doesn’t really know how to make the film look visually impressive because its not a medium that required interesting visuals. The writing can sometimes also come across as drawn out or even repetitive, mainly probably coming from the fact that the writer for the movie was also the director and producer for the movie, Alan J. Pakula, who despite being a part of some fantastic movies, only wrote four films in his line-up. The dialogue isn’t unnatural or ineffective, but it isn’t exactly memorable or especially distinct either.

Sophie’s Choice unfortunately suffers from the hype that was built up around it due to Streep’s phenomenal praise as her role, as this high standard may turn some people off when they come see the movie and realize that it isn’t anything that dramatically effective, at least not in that much of a bombastic level. It has good performances (mainly from the two main leads) and it has a narrative that, while clunky and poorly handled in parts, has some really gripping and emotionally effective moments (when we’re allowed to see it). It is nice to see someone like Streep in a role where it just feels like a natural performance that isn’t hampered by stardom as nowadays, Streep’s presence in a movie has become glossier and distinctly ‘’Meryl Streep’’ as opposed to relying on a great performance that happens to be from Meryl Streep. Regardless of the hype, Sophie’s Choice is a good film that might keep your attention for a couple hours, just don’t go in expecting a Godfather or anything.