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Movies / On DVD / Sophie's Choice
Sophie's Choice

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Sophie's Choice (1982)

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Reviews Counted:26

Fresh:21

Rotten:5

Average Rating:7.1/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 30 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: The film follows Stingo, an aspiring young writer who moves to New York just post-WWII to a Brooklyn boarding house where he becomes friends with Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline), a Jewish research... The film follows Stingo, an aspiring young writer who moves to New York just post-WWII to a Brooklyn boarding house where he becomes friends with Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline), a Jewish research chemist and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska (Meryl Streep). Nathan and Sophie's relationship is clouded by Nathan's violent behavior, his uncontrollable jealousy, and Sophie's unexpressed but troubling memories of her war experience. Her stories about her life during the war begin to unravel, exposing her as a liar and adding a tone of mystery to the strained relationship between Nathan, Stingo, and herself. The film culminates in a flashback reflecting the horrors of the war and the true cause of Sophie's insufferable pain. Director Alan J. Pakula's film, a departure from his conspiracy and suspense dramas, was an adaptation of William Styron's best-selling novel and the story itself was based on his experiences as a southerner living in Brooklyn in 1947. [More]

Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin

Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Director: Alan J. Pakula
Screenwriter: William Styron
Composer: Marvin Hamlisch

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Sophie's Choice

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
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By the end, the accumulated weight and lethargy of the production fails to invest Sophie's fate with the significance Styron achieves.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment 1 Comment
06/24/06
Derek Adams
Derek Adams
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Literary adaptations rarely come more intelligent than this. A beautiful, haunting masterpiece from start to finish.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
05/24/03
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Meryl Streep's role in this film is so overwhelming that she outshines everything else.

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dragan Antulov
Dragan Antulov
rec.arts.movies.reviews

A suffocating 151 minutes long, with a healthy portion of that running time devoted to a hunk of Holocausploitation of the most crass and cynical variety. And that's the good part.

Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | comment Comment
11/05/09
Tim Brayton
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy

Incorporates one woman's narrative of surviving the Holocaust into a larger, crushingly banal story of a young, Southern writer's coming of age in the big city of New York.

Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | comment 2 Comments
01/10/03
Nick Davis
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks

So perfectly cast and well-imagined that it just takes over and happens to you. It's quite an experience.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
10/23/04
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The picture is completely devoid of cinematic interest, adopting instead a tiresome theatrical aesthetic in which showy monologues are filmed in interminable, usually ill-chosen long takes.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment 1 Comment
06/26/07
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader

The movie is too Hollywood in look and feel--it's garish and overwrought--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.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
12/10/07
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Though it's far from a flawless movie, Sophie's Choice is a unified and deeply affecting one. Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
08/30/04
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This is the way stories are supposed to be told to us sitting out there in the dark theater.

Full Review Source: Old School Reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
John A. Nesbit
John A. Nesbit
Old School Reviews

Astoundingly tedious.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment 1 Comment
06/26/07
Variety Staff
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A substantial movie, and one serious film watchers won't want to miss.

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
01/01/00
Brian Webster
Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

Competently directed by Pakula and [features] gorgeous cinematography by Almendros.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
06/26/07
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
04/30/09
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

Stunning to the max, and Streep is memorable as Sophie.

comment Comment
03/02/08
Steve Crum
Steve Crum
Video-Reviewmaster.com

Heartbreakingly lovely performances.

comment Comment
07/20/03
Nell Minow
Nell Minow
Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

Wildly depressing.

comment Comment
10/28/02
Robert Roten
Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope

"Streep's magnetic, shattering performance haunts the memory"

comment Comment
07/29/02
James Sanford
James Sanford
Kalamazoo Gazette

No review available.

comment Comment
05/26/03
Jules Brenner
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

No review available.

comment Comment
09/05/03
Carol Cling
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
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June 22, 2007: AFI Announces Top 100 Movies of All Time ... Again
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