Sophie's Choice
by Alan J. Pakula
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DVD details
Actor: Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. NewmanDirector: Alan J. Pakula
Brand: STREEP,MERYL
Cinematographer: N?stor Almendros
Producer: Alan J. Pakula
Writer: Alan J. Pakula
Producer: Keith Barish
Producer: Martin Starger
Producer: William C. Gerrity
Writer: William Styron
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 150 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-04-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Sophie's Choice
DVD Review: sharp sprawling leviathan of a book
Summary: 5 Stars
How adventitious that I picked up "Sophie's Choice" in a used book sale in Ithaca this summer. I was looking for smart romances and knew nothing about this book (never saw the movie either), which turned out to be, mirabile dictu, one of the smartest books I've ever read, romance or not (and it is strown with sexiness).
The narrator, the priapic and jejune Stingo is a Southerner in New York City, and displays an ineluctable wit and humour throughout, despite the sepulchral topics: the Holocaust and Auschwitz, Southern slavery and American racism, domestic violence and mortal grief. Sophie is a Christian Pole in Brooklyn, smart, sweet, and haunted beyond measure. Her lover Nathan is a mesmerising and troubled Jewish scientist.
Their lives, erotic and destructive in turn, are the subject of this sharp sprawling leviathan of a book. I highly recommend it.
DVD Review: Stuffy but worthy
Summary: 4 Stars
The Bottom Line:
One of those prestige-y, Oscar-bait adaptations of a critically-acclaimed work of literature that isn't quite as good as the producers think it is, (see also: The English Patient, The Hours, The Reader, Cold Mountain, etc.) Sophie's Choice is a fairly engaging and compelling piece of drama that is enhanced by Streep and Kline but marred by a overlong running length and a not-especially good Peter MacNicol; it's worth seeing but it's not a great film.
3/4
DVD Review: Puts the "I" in "Intense"
Summary: 5 Stars
Quick. Name me just one bad Meryl Streep performance (or even one mediocre one). I'll wait. (And Mamma Mia doesn't count.)
You're right. There isn't one.
And perhaps Streep's very best role is in the haunting, troubling SOPHIE'S CHOICE. I've seen this film on several occasions, and it's blown my socks off every time. Set in post-World War II Brooklyn, this is a story containing nuance, tenderness, guilt, remorse, discovery. . .raw emotion. And the focal point is Meryl Streep's role as Sophie, a Polish immigrant trying to overcome a most horrific past.
Told from the point of view of young Southern writer Stingo (a very fragile-looking Peter MacNicol), we witness the developing relationships of the three main characters: Stingo, Sophie, and her lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline, who brings this bipolar biologist to vivid life). Stingo, in effect, becomes a third wheel to the couple, and realizes there is more, much more, to Sophie and Nathan than meets the eye. And as we move deeper into the story, we the viewers become privy to more and more of the troubling details of Sophie's European past, until the details become not troubling, but horrific, when Sophie must make a most heart-wrenching choice concerning her two children.
While Kline and MacNicol are exceptional, Streep is absolutely flawless as the beautiful, yet mortally wounded, Sophie. Streep is indeed the motor that drives the intensity of this story--a story that will break your heart as it ends. Streep is not a good actress, she's a great actress; to say SOPHIE'S CHOICE is her very best role gets no argument from me.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
DVD Review: how true is this experience?
Summary: 4 Stars
this was such an incredible heart wrenching film that is hard to bear and one wonders why this concept was greenlighted, the secret that not only Jews were persecuted, that a mother had to make a choice about their childrens death in line, that any choice she made was so defensible and no judgement would be incurred by anyone who never experienced such horror???... and to ajudicate an audience's heartstrings became the nouveaux film genre for Oscar wins...I keep thinking that Terms of Endearment followed these footsteps to copy this formula and it makes me insane to think how manipulative producers are to garnish another notch in the knife to the heart...oh well, unbelievable performances by Streep, and Kline was amazing....being a parent I can never disrespect the atrocities of this era but to milk it, esp with the endscene, JEEZ LOUISE!!! I can barely handle I am Sam, let alone this screamplay, I can only cry for so long for my losses, and never feel good enough to earn my sympathy...if I am wrong, my deepest apologies to those whose intent to enlighten us was sincere.DVD Review: One of the best performances!
Summary: 5 Stars
Meryl Streep delivers one of, if not her best performances in any film I have seen her in. If you are a student of film, you must see this. If you are a fan of film, you must see this. If you are neither, you still must see this. The story is not for the faint of heart, it's a very intense subject matter that will have your mind doing cartwheels. Every performance I see is compared to Streep's performance in this film, leaving me walking away from the theatre saying "well, it was good, but it was no Sophie's Choice." See this film!
Another good film: Postcards from the Edge add it to your cart with Sophie's Choice.
Description of Sophie's Choice
A Polish Catholic who survived Auschwitz settles in America after World War II. A personalized view of the Holocaust and its devastating effect on one woman who survived it but lost her children.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-JUL-2006
Media Type: DVD
The sunny streets of Brooklyn, just after World War II. A young would-be writer named Stingo (Peter MacNicol) shares a boarding house with beautiful Polish immigrant Sophie (Meryl Streep) and her tempestuous lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline); their friendship changes his life. This adaptation of the bestselling novel by William Styron is faithful to the point of being reverential, which is not always the right way to make a film come to life. But director Alan J. Pakula (All the President's Men) provides a steady, intelligent path into the harrowing story of Sophie, whose flashback memories of the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp form the backbone of the movie. Streep's exceptional performance--flawless Polish accent and all--won her an Oscar, and effectively raised the standard for American actresses of her generation. No less impressive is Kevin Kline, in his movie debut, capturing the mercurial moods of the dangerously attractive Nathan. The two worlds of Sophie's Choice, nostalgic Brooklyn and monstrous Europe, are beautifully captured by the gifted cinematographer N?stor Almendros, whose work was Oscar-nominated but didn't win. It should have. --Robert Horton
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