1948. A young man, Stingo, moves to New York with aspirations of becoming a writer. He befriends two of his neighbours, Sophie and Nathan. Sophie is Polish and survived a Nazi concentration camp during WW2. Nathan and Sophie seem very much in love but Nathan's fits of jealousy and abuse threaten their idyllic existence. Moreover, Sophie harbours some deep secrets from her time in Auschwitz.

Excellent drama. Initially an engaging story of three friends and their relationship. This largely innocent initial period sets up the film for the later plot developments and revelations. The revelations are incredibly moving, revealing the extent of Nazi brutality and the lengths people had to go to and the decisions they had to make in order to survive it.

In addition this some other powerful subjects and themes are explored: the depths of man's inhumanity towards man, abusive relationships and why people stay in them, innocence lost.

While the plot and direction set this up to be a great movie, ensuring its classic status is an absolutely mesmerising performance from Meryl Streep as Sophie. Everything about her performance is perfect, down to the last word of dialogue and facial expression. There can't be too many better performances, if any, in the history of cinema and she truly deserved her Best Actress Oscar.

"Sophie's Choice" is set in Brooklyn in the late 1940s, soon after the end of the Second World War. The three main characters are Stingo, a young writer from the Deep South, and Nathan and Sophie, the couple who befriend him. Nathan is a Jewish New Yorker who tells Stingo that he is a research biologist for a pharmaceutical company. Sophie is a Polish gentile immigrant who has survived imprisonment in Auschwitz by the Nazis. At first the atmosphere is relatively light, one of love, friendship and fun. This part of the film is shot in brilliant colour in a summer setting, and the affluent suburbs of New York seem a safe haven from the horrors of the war that has recently ravaged Europe.

Gradually, however, the tone darkens as we become aware that the gentle, beautiful Sophie is hiding a dark secret. We learn that her beloved father was not, as she claimed, an anti-Nazi intellectual, but was actually a rabid anti-Semite and admirer of Nazism whom the Germans murdered by mistake. Nathan originally seems eccentric but vivacious and likable, but as the film progresses he begins to show signs of disturbance, insulting Stingo whom he has previously treated as a friend, and unreasonably suspecting Sophie of being unfaithful to him. We, and Stingo, learn from Nathan's brother that he is in fact suffering from mental illness and that he is only employed by the pharmaceutical company in a lowly clerical position, not as a research scientist, although Sophie remains unaware of these facts.

In 1982 there had been many films made about the Second World War, but relatively few about the Holocaust, which seemed to daunt film-makers by its very enormity. Alan Pakula was therefore breaking new ground, particularly as he approached the subject from a controversial angle, tackling the question of war guilt- not the legal and moral guilt of those who perpetrated the Holocaust, but the psychological guilt of those who survived it. After liberation from the camps, many survivors such as Sophie experienced feelings of guilt that they had survived whereas many others, including friends and family members, had died. Sophie's feelings of guilt are exacerbated by her knowledge of her father's odious political views and by the fact that she had attempted to exploit her father's reputation and her fluent knowledge of German in an attempt to ingratiate herself with Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, whose secretary she became. Sophie's most agonising secret, however, is the "choice" of the film's title- the fact that she was forced by a brutal Nazi officer to choose which of her two children should live and which should die. Her love for the Jewish Nathan, whom she clings to despite his mistreatment of her, may be a way of atoning for her guilt feelings.

There are a few weaknesses in the film. During the first half the action can be too slow, and Stingo, as played by Peter MacNichol, seems a fairly weak figure. The scene of his sexual encounter with a girl who talks like a whore and acts like a prude would be funny in a comedy but is out of place in a serious film like this one. Despite these weaknesses, however, this is a film which more than justifies its ambitious theme. Meryl Streep is one of the greatest film actresses of all time, and certainly the best of the early eighties, and this is possibly her best-ever role. She demonstrated her famed linguistic talents, playing the Auschwitz scenes in excellent German and the English-language scenes with a Polish accent, but (contrary to what some hostile critics have sometimes claimed) there is more to her acting than a collection of foreign accents. One criticism that is sometimes made of Streep is that she is too intellectual an actress, self-consciously thinking her way into a part rather than trying to live it emotionally, but in this case at least this seems to be the right approach. It is difficult to see how the "Method" could cope with a role like Sophie, whose emotional experiences are so far beyond those of any actress likely to be called upon to play her. Certainly, I found this one of the most affecting performances I have seen. Never can the "Best Actress" Oscar have been better deserved. Kevin Kline was unlucky not to have been nominated for his part as the tormented and tragic Nathan. This is a dark, sombre film but one of high quality and great emotional power. 8/10

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!