Gender and age discrepancies aside, if my life were made into a movie, I would want Meryl Streep to play my part.This woman is a genius.
And this is the film where she really comes into her own as a full-bodied, well-tuned maestro of the acting profession. As far as I'm concerned, Meryl is the only person acting in this movie. Everyone else is fine, sure: Kevin Kline made me hate his schizophrenic drug-addict character, and Peter MacNicol was okay as the hayseed Southern boy from Virginia taking root in Brooklyn to finish a book. But none of them shine quite as brightly as Meryl.
She plays Sophie Zawistowski, a woman who was interned at Auschwitz, though not Jewish (she didn't type up some Gestapo documents when asked by Nazi leaders). While waiting in a line at the concentration camp, a Nazi officer comes up to her and demands that she choose one of her two children to go into the camp, alone. If she chooses, he says, he will let her and the other child go free. If she does not choose, he will take them all into the camp. Sophie makes her big choice, and lives with it for the rest of her life.
Her choice, while being the emotional climax of the movie, is not the main plotline. In 1947, Sophie is living in Brooklyn with her boyfriend Nathan Landau (a hideous man played by Kevin Kline). They are joined in their boarding house by a 22-year-old boy from the South who goes by the name Stingo. Stingo falls for Sophie, Nathan is jealous and insane, drama and tragedy follows.
Like I said, the emotional core of the movie is Sophie's choice (duh). Streep did an exceptionally good job in this movie of playing a tough-skinned Polish girl with a secret that tears her apart daily. I found myself hanging on each, masterfully accented, word she spoke. Although the movie is only above average except for Streep's performance (I wasn't moved by the story, the directing, or the other acting), her turn as Sophie made watching the movie entirely worthwhile.
Only watch this movie if you are prepared for one of the best performances a living actress has ever given. Meryl Streep, God bless you.
Love me some Meryl Streep, but I don't know if I'd like this movie... this isn't exactly high on my list of "must-watch movies", so maybe later in life.
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