Sophie's Choice(film)

My essay about movies

released 1982

Directed by Alan J Pakula

Starring Meryl Streep

Kevin Kline

Peter MacNicol



The time when I saw this great film was around 30 years ago. Meryl Streep, who portrayed Sophie, a Polish heroine and Auschwitz survivor, was forced to choose which one of her two kids to send to the gas chamber upon arrival at the concentration camp.

Polish people, Sophie, the cause of her sentence to the camp was a really slight thing, which was that she tried to purchase food for her family on the black market. I felt shocked to know how Polish people were treated under the occupation.

After liberation from a concentration camp, she immigrated to the USA and met Nathan (Kevin Kline) and held the dream of reconstructing her shattered past. But Nathan himself had serious mental ill and she realized that his mental condition couldn't recover. Finally, she chose to commit suicide with him.

Peter MacNicol as Stingo, who portrayed the storyteller, made the film feel fresh. Recently, he performed in various dramas. I feel glad to watch young MacNicol. Meryl's performance was incredible, and I felt her performance was one of a kind. The Emily Dickinson poems used at key points in the films are beautiful.