Review of Sophie's Choice (1982) by Cole P — 12 Sep 2011

Sophie's Choice is a tragic love story. It involves a Polish Holocaust survivor, the beautiful, multilingual Sophie Zawistowska, falling in love with Nathan, a brilliant Jew. In the middle of their Shakespeareanesque drama is Stingo, a young writer from Virginia looking to fulfill both his passions for writing and his insatiable sex life. I've seen the movie, and better yet, read the book. I'm here to reveal, unsurprisingly, that William Styron's epic novel outclasses the movie in almost every way, shape, and form. There's simply no short way to illustrate the drama that encapsulates the three main characters in only two and a half hours. But, the movie certainly tries, and in some areas, it succeeds.

Meryl Streep plays the emotionally wrecked Sophie. Her performance supersedes any other best actress role in the long hall of acclaim. She emulates the Polish accent perfectly and carries the weight of Sophie's issues realistically and effectively. Even with a shortened story (as the writers had to condense everything) Meryl Streep was able to bring out the subtleties of the character--delivering more than what any of the screenwriters bargained for.

Opposite to Meryl Streep is a young Kevin Kline as her Jewish lover, Nathan. The love story is the engine of the book, and thankfully, Kline had the ability to perform impeccably as a paranoid schizophrenic whilst also a genuine fiance. His performance is actually so creepy (and sometimes over the top) that he reminds me of some schizos even I've bothered to forget about.

My third point to critique is inevitably Peter MacNicol's role as Stingo, which is perfectly fine for the average movie goers but will likely disappoint readers of the novel. Here's the issue: While MacNicol talks, looks, acts, and interprets everything visual about Stingo, there's no denying that he couldn't capture Stingo's VOICE. Of course, this is not MacNicol's fault but a problem of translating the book to the screen. The novel is written in a very detailed, pedantic first person view, with Stingo (well, practically Styron) commenting on every minute detail from social commentary on the Holocaust to the undulant curves of Sophie's ass. As a narrative, this works incredibly well. As a movie however, the tactic is defective. Even if director Alan J. Pakula went the Goodfellas route and riddled the two-hours with narration reminiscent of Ray Liotta's saga, this still would be inadequate in maintaining the essence of the book.

And I'm not trying to malign the movie and glorify the book. In the movie, we are led to believe that Stingo prioritizes his relation to Sophie as nothing more than a friendship. Upon the clandestine love scene, even I was alarmed at the sudden lechery that consumed these two. Again, this is more a flaw of translating pages to screen--we can't really know what's going on in Stingo's head 24/7, nor do we have any idea his deepest feelings for the titular character.

Nonetheless, Sophie's Choice is capable of telling the memorable chunks of Styron's story without expurgating anything too significant. The cinematography of New York, circa 1947, is captured with cleverly filmed shots (as to avoid revealing any 80's architecture). I especially liked the flashbacks to the Holocaust, done in a grainy black and white that has style over Spielberg's later Schindler's List.

So viewer be warned, for Sophie's Choice is a tragic one that seemingly slips by too fast. At least we had great performances to entertain along the way. For those feeling left empty at the end credits, I highly recommend checking out the book. It might not necessarily save you time, but it'll be like a director's cut. Times 10.