Sophie's Choice (1982)

Genre

Drama | Romance

Director

Alan J. Pakula

Country

United States

Cast
Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. Newman, Greta Turken, Josh Mostel, Marcell Rosenblatt, Moishe Rosenfeld, Robin Bartlett, John Rothman, Katharina Thalbach, Nedim Prohic, Jennifer Lawn, Adrian Kalitka

Plot
In 1947, Stingo (Peter MacNicol), a young aspiring writer from Virginia, heads to New York to seek his fortune.

Moved into a quirky Brooklyn house, Stingo's quiet and active life as a writer is disturbed by the turbulent relationship of other two tenants of the house: Sophie Zawistowska (Meryl Streep), a Polish refugee with a terrible past, and Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline), an intellectual jew, brilliant and sophisticated but moody, obsessed with the Holocaust and the subsequent death of six million Jews.

Opinion
Pakula, director and writer, manages to bring to the screen a very intense story. The most dramatic and complex character is definitely Sophie's. The flashbacks about what happened to Sophie during the war and her internment in the Auschwitz concentration camp, leads us to understand the behavior of the woman and her relationship with Nathan and Stingo. The scene in which we discover the facts behind Sophie's "choice" is a wrenching one. 

Kevin Kline - which makes his debut in this film - and Peter MacNicol are outstanding; Meryl Streep's Academy Award for Best Actress is totally deserved.

Quotes
Don't you see? We are dying. I longed desperately to escape, to pack my bags and flee, but I did not.

Rating
8.2/10