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Sophie's Choice
First Published: 1976
562 pages
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About the Movie
For many, the whole experience of Sophie´s Choice is now inseparable from Meryl Streep´s performance as Sophie in the 1982 film version of William Styron´s novel. Directed by Alan J. Pakula (The Parallax View, All the President´s Men), who also adapted the sprawling novel, the film co-stars Kevin Kline as Nathan Landau and Peter McNichol as Styron´s alter ego, Stingo. Inevitably, the film telescopes the story and jettisons Styron´s rich, discursive meditations, but the tragic drama of Sophie´s fate is unforgettably caught.
Under Pakula´s sensitive direction, the acting in the film is, critically, uniform in its high quality. Streep is overwhelming, delivering one of her very finest performances, her Polish accent so impeccable that, in flashback sequences, she reportedly even spoke German with a Polish accent. Deservedly, she won her virtually every prize given for the best performance by a leading actress in a film in 1982 -- the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the best actress awards of the New York and the Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review. In accepting her Oscar, she spoke in glowing terms of Kline and McNichol, and their performances have long been underrated elements in the film´s success -- Kline capturing manic, irresistible allure and the looming darkness of Nathan, and McNichol striking the right note as a young Southern gentleman learning about life.
Sophie´s Choice was elegantly shot by the great Cuban-born cinematographer Nestor Almendros, best known for his work with François Truffaut, and he won the New York Film Critics award and an Oscar nomination for his work. (In addition to Almendros and Streep, Pakula´s screenplay, Marvin Hamlisch´s musical score and Albert Wolsky´s costume design also won Oscar nominations.) The film was named one of the year´s 10 best by the National Board of Review. Sophie´s Choice did not enjoy box office success, and some critics -- notably Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris-even remained unimpressed with Meryl Streep. Yet the film prevails, even at the distance of a couple of decades, as a rare achievement: a sensitive and intelligent adaptation of a great big American novel.
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