Such a frustrating disappointment

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Warning: This film is about concentration camps and is VERY hard to watch at times. While I would not put it in the same emotional category as "Schindler's List", be prepared and think twice before you see the movie. It is a super-depressing picture."Sophie's Choice" is an interesting film in that the performance by Meryl Streep is truly stupendous...one of the best acting performances I've ever seen. To get this part, she learned German and Polish and THEN worked on her accents...and seemed to be great at them as well as speaking German during the flashback scenes. She also has her hair shaved and allowed herself to look just godawful in these scenes. Yet, while she is amazing, the rest of the film is good but not nearly as good. This would explain why this is an unusual case with a Best Actress award for a film that was not nominated for Best Picture. Now I am not saying the rest of the film is bad...but dwelling so much on the present day in the first half of the film seems like a bit of a mistake. The last half, with the powerful flashbacks and secrets divulged about Sophie and her incredibly volatile boyfriend (Kevin Kline) is very exciting and it left you wanting more...and left me wanting far less of the friendship portion in the first half or the ravings of the boyfriend. In fact, I wonder if it might have been better to split this into two entirely different movies. Still, with such a great performance by Streep, it's still on my list of movies to see.By the way, this is not a complaint but in the amusement park sequence near the beginning, notice how Peter MacNicol's straw hat stays on as if super glued to his head!

I am forever blindsided by the inhumanity of the Nazi war machine, collective insanity! With that being said, the movie title is a bit misleading --- In my humble opinion, It was not a singular choice Sophie made but many choices. Some viewers of this movie contend that Sophie's choice was the one she made to save her son over her daughter. The title is deceptive and leads the viewer to conclude it that way with little effort on the viewer to go beyond that.Sophie is rifled with choices. Stingo vs. Nathan, life versus death (during the war and in its aftermath). Be loyal to her dad's worldview and that of her husband, or support their enemy. Be truthful in her post as Nazi aid and secretary, or save herself from certain extermination. The list goes on and on.I found the acting to be superb but found the overall movie to be just competent, nothing amazing.

Based on William Styron's novel, this Alan J. Pakula directed adaptation stars Meryl Streep as Sophie, a Polish refugee and concentration camp survivor haunted by those painful memories; Kevin Kline plays Nathan, a Jewish man who loves Sophie, and is obsessed with the Holocaust and emotionally erratic, veering from affectionate to combative; Peter MacNicol plays Stingo, a young American writer who befriends them both, and ultimately tells their story, as he acts as the film's narrator as the three of them share a boarding house, and Stingo will learn Sophie's terrible "choice" that has haunted her for years...Meryl Streep is magnificent in her Academy Award winning performance, portraying the haunted guilt and heartbreak of that impossible choice made many years ago. Nathan's craziness does grate on the viewer after awhile, and film is a bit long, but so powerfully acted and told that it is well worth seeing regardless of these quibbles.

Sophie's Choice is a drama film that tells the story of a Polish immigrant, Sophie, and her tempestuous lover who share a boarding house with a young writer in Brooklyn. The film stars Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNicol. Alan J. Pakula directed the movie and wrote the script from a novel by William Styron of the same title.Aspiring southern author Stingo (MacNichol) heads to New York to seek his fortune. Moving into a dingy Brooklyn boarding house, Stingo strikes up a friendship with research chemist Nathan Landau (Kline) and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska (Streep). There is something unsettling about the relationship; Nathan is subject to violent mood swings, while Sophie seems to be harboring a horrible secret. Stingo soon learns that both Nathan and Sophie are strangers to truth.One evening, Stingo learns from Sophie that she was married but her husband and her father were killed in a German work camp and that she was interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp.Nathan is constantly jealous, and when he is in one of his violent mood swings he convinces himself that Sophie is unfaithful to him and abuses and harasses her. There is a flashback showing Nathan rescuing Sophie from near death from anemia shortly after her immigration to the U.S. Sophie eventually reveals that her father was a Nazi sympathizer. Sophie had a lover, Józef, who lived with his half-sister, Wanda, a leader in the Resistance. Wanda tried to convince Sophie to translate some stolen Gestapo documents, but Sophie declined, fearing she might endanger her children. Two weeks later Józef was murdered by the Gestapo, and Sophie was arrested and sent to Auschwitz with her children.She reveals to him the tragic choice she was forced to make at Auschwitz. Upon arrival, she was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose her son, Jan, to be sent to the children's camp, and her daughter, Eva, to be sent to her death in Crematorium Two.The movie is too Hollywood in look and feel, and the flashback and narration are too conventional, and yet the image of the sickly and pale Meryl Streep recollecting her ordeal lingers in memory long after the film is over. Streep is memorable as Sophie which makes her truly deserving of the Academy Award for Best Actress that she won for this movie.Though it's far from a flawless movie, it is a unified and deeply affecting movie due in part due Streep's performance and the story just takes over and happens to you. It's quite an experience.