Adapted from the novel by William Styron, "Sophie's Choice" is set in the post war 1940's New York and focuses on the days in the seemingly carefree lives of a group of very close housemates. Stingo (Peter MacNichol), a southern aspiring writer who is looking for life experiences to inspire his muse; Sophie (Meryll Streep), a Polish woman and holocaust survivor, and her charismatic but unpredictably moody lover Nathan (Kevin Kline). As the film goes on, a love triangle develops between them and dark secrets are revealed about each character's past.

The first thing I have to say about the film is that it is totally unpretentious- perhaps as unpretentious as a film drama can get. As many reviewers have pointed out, Alan J. Pakula directed this film without drawing any attention to flashy camerawork or overemphasising images or frames. He directed like a fly on the wall and just let the characters and dialogue work on its own merits, and that's what makes it a powerful film. The film is purely character-driven, as we focus on the friendship between the trio, and their carefree activities- we witness visits to the funfair, fancy dress picnics, getting drunk together on the Brooklyn Bridge. Moments that are truly warming and inviting. You feel you could truly be yourself and do anything if you were around these characters. With a spontanaeity and enthusiasm that is captivating and thoroughly amusing. It lures you into a false sense of security, because it seems inconcievable that anything could be troubling these carefree characters.

And yet the unveiling of these hidden secrets and demons of the past is done completely credibly. Stingo is the appropriate narrator to her story, and Peter MacNichol does a wonderful performance, proving to have far more capability than the typical geeky comic roles he plays in "Ally McBeal" or "Ghostbusters II". He is wide eyed and eager to hear the lives of other people. He draws inspiration from stories and conversations. He's someone who really listens and we are always trusting of him- he has no secrets, no haunting past he hides or grotesque intentions- and he genuinely wants to help people in any small way to find happiness or peace of mind.

It is not surprising that a character like Sophie is able to trust and confide in him. Meryll Streep plays Sophie with appropriate hesitation. She is played realistically as a character who does not wish to share her experience but gradually lets bits of her experience be told through her growing trust to Stingo. Nothing is laboured about the holocaust tragedy through melodrama- and in that, they are beautiful moments.

Now I have to emphasise that the memory scenes set in the concentration camp are the scenes which makes the film. Those scenes alone makes the whole film a worthy purchase. I started into this film as a casual viewer, But in one of the scenes of Sophie's memories of her experiences at the Nazi concentration camp, where we see a young girl held prisoner, being chosen for extermination and being dragged away screaming from her mother, was so sudden, so impassionate, it hit my heart like an arrow when my defences were down. It just made me lose it and I pretty much exploded into tears. I am by no means the type of person who cries while watching sad film, I get emotionally involved easily but I don't cry. I nearly cried during "Titanic", "The Sixth Sense" and "Dark Water", but somehow the tears didn't come out- but this is one of the rare scenes of film that has actually made me cry. As many others have pointed out before me, a combination of unnoticeable directing and terrific acting make that moment so real that it transcends the screen. I'd attest that it is one of cinema's greatest scenes of all time, never mind greatest scenes of the 80's.

In one particularly charming scene we are shown the hot and cold techniques of mental cruelty by the Camp guards she was victimised by. In this scen the young daughter of the Nazi General makes a long racist rant against Sophie for being a "stinking, good for nothing, Polish thief" and in a heartbeat, but without an apology the girl has a change of heart and begins making steps to befriend Sophie by sharing her school swimming certificates with her. It is a wonderful scene for exploring the idea of indoctrinated racism, where a young child may repeat the hateful rants of their parents, but without feeling the same hatred- their heart wouldn't necessarily be in the words and at that stage of life, they can be swayed from ignorance and intolerance through communication and education. And like Sophie, we feel the compulsion to give in to the calmness offered by submitting to degradation as though its a comforting fact of life.

But these scenes are brief, and concern the past. The main drive of the film is depicting how Sophie's past affects her now in her relationship with Nathan. Gradually it becomes clear that the relationship between Sophie and Nathan is a very abusive one. A relationship of mental abuse rather than physical abuse, though Nathan becomes more and more violent towards the end of the film. But Sophie feels she can't be anything but submissive to his abuse because he keeps robbing her footing of her ability to regain her pride and her assertiveness. He offers her love and happiness and with a sudden mood swing he mercilessly berates her with paranoid accusations and misogynistically cruel insults, while she begs him to stay with her. Rather like reliving the hot and cold tactics of mental cruelty of the Nazis.

Rather like in Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece "Raging Bull", we see Nathan as an abusive lover with various dimensions. A fully fledged human being, occasionally warm and likeable, but who still abuses his girlfriend. While Sophie is insane with guilt, Nathan is just insane. We're drawn towards Nathan's character because he exhudes madness in all its most magnetc qualities- where he is delusional, we are captivated by his conviction and self-belief, where he has mood swings we can't help but be impressed by his spontanaeity, where he is an obsessive compulsive, his persistence gets under our skin. His madness is colour and his demeaur eloquent enough to draw people towards him, without giving away any warning signs of his lunacy.

In that way we much closer relate to Sophie's position of feeling unable to leave him, because there's many things about him we can't help but admire. And of course, when he apologises to Sophie and promises to change, we know its not hollow- that he genuinely does mean what he says -he wants to change and treat her with kindness- but his aggression is obsessive and compulsive and he'll never change and Sophie will never have a healthy life around him. And I think that can sometimes send a far more reachable message to people who really live in that situation, than an image of a hateable, one-dimensional bully.

I like how the film doesn't try to get its point across through any moral hammering or even subtle prodding. It gives us the credit of letting us use our own free thinking minds to consider the cruelty of the situation. After all we have grown to love Sophie's character as someone who can be so kind and selfless having endured so much cruelty, heartbreaking loss and injustice. It doesn't take any prompting to know that it is an incredible cruel irony that Sophie suffers from survivors guilt, when she was the victim of the Nazi cruelty, not the perpetrator, and any sick mind games of "turning around the blame" she suffered to her captors were nothing more than grotesque propaganda of "moral superiority of the master race". But at the same time we know if we could give her this reassurance she'd probably be unable to totally believe it with all her heart, because she has clearly lost her sense of clarity amidst the confusion, and may never recover it, certainly not if she keeps living this way.

And that's the basis of my one big complaint of the film, (though the book is as much to blame for this), which is that the conflicts and skeletons in the closet ultimately leads to a downbeat and unsatisfying conclusion. I don't wish to give away any spoilers, but for a film which deals with living with intense grief, its conclusion doesn't lead us to any fulfillment of the healing and recovery process. But then again many would hail that as an achievement for a film which doesn't spoon feed the audience with emotions.

Recommended unsuitable for pre-teen audiences due to strong sexual language and distressing scenes.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older