Sophie's Choice (1982)

IMDb plot summary: Sophie is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust.

Directed by Alan J. Pakula. Stars Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNicol.

Sophie’s Choice is one of those cultural touchstones films I "should have" seen already... but I'm not convinced it quite deserves that title. The film follows a young writer who becomes entangled with Polish Holocaust survivor Sophie, played by Meryl Streep, and her highly volatile lover, played by Kevin Kline. The relationship between the latter two is both magnetic and toxic, filled with love, cruelty, and instability, and the writer becomes an audience insert observer of their dynamic. Streep is extraordinary here. Her acting choices for Sophie are both distinct and completely believable. Kline is also incredible, though, filling his scenes with a terrifying mania, making the pair fascinating but sometimes very difficult to watch. All that praise aside, though, I came away ultimately disappointed. Their relationship goes round and round in circles, peeling away layers and back story, until it culminates in the story of Sophie's titular "choice"... but that scene feels oddly disconnected from the rest of the story. It isn't the smoking gun revelation about Sophie that it's set up to be, it's just one more horrifically tragic piece of her past that then gets jumped past to tie up loose ends. Maybe the novel handles this better. I’m curious to read it and see if it's able to make that connection. As it stands, Sophie’s Choice is beautifully acted and very compelling for much of its runtime, but somehow both too long and not long enough to tie its pieces together.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sophie's Choice (1982)

📊 Ranked #1613/4068 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 61

beat Cinderella (#2030 → #3078)

lost to Pig (#1013 → #1018)

lost to Muppet Treasure Island (#1520 → #1519)

beat Spy (#1776 → #2268)

beat Batman Forever (#1647 → #2262)

lost to Spider-Man 2 (#1584 → #1583)

lost to True Romance (#1615 → #1617)

beat Cake (#1631 → #1634)

beat Undercover Blues (#1623 → #1628)

lost to The Slipper and the Rose (held at #1619)

beat Logan (#1621 → #1624)

lost to The Trojan Women (#1620 → #1622)