Sophie's Choice

It had been at least a year since I had seen Sophie's Choice. I remember very well, when I began liking Meryl I looked up her filmography - of course - and watched all her comedies I could find in the video store, something that is by the way slowely disappearing now. It's Complicated, The Devil Wears Prada, Julie and Julia, Hope Springs (the first Meryl movie I saw knowing I was watching Meryl Streep), Mamma Mia. And when I had seen all those movies I began to fear. I asbolutely didn't want to see all her drama's, unfortunately for me (at the time), two thirds of Meryl's filmography are drama's. I forced myself to watch Sophie's Choice. It was a mental obligation: I told myself that if I really liked her I should at least see her Oscar winning movies, and I did! I only found Sophie's Choice without subtitles, and I had absolutely no problem with that, until I discovered half of the movie was in Polish and German. Sophie's Choice became incomprehensible, even though I cried during the "choice"- scene, I had no clue what he was saying, besides of course, "you have to choose". And I  never watched it again: I felt like I couldn't. Until last night. When the movie began, and the ever gorgeous Sophie Zawistowska was sitting on the stairs, crying after a fight she had with her lover Nathan, I recalled why Meryl Streep was considered the greatest. After a while in the movie, I forgot I was watching Meryl. 'Who's that Polish person playing Sophie?' Wait, that's Streep, oh yes, I remember. I think I can say Sophie's Choice was the best performance she has given on screen. The best, and I know nobody would have been able to do what she had done.

                               

You all know the story, you all know Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol are beyond great actors, so I'd rather like to talk about Sophie's and Nathan's relationship.

Nathan and Sophie had a beautiful love romance. They needed each other as much as they needed air. There was no doubt. But Nathan had the bad habitude to hit Sophie if he had drunk too much, or he saw events that never took place; like hallucinations. He insulted her of being a whore, of cheating on him. But after the continuous hits and screams, he'd take her in his arms and beg her for forgiveness. She was all he had and his love for her went very far. But, why, you think to yourself. You ask yourself why someone would hurt the one he loved as much. It's a mystery and it will always remain. Further in the movie we discover Nathan's mental illness and all the lies he had told his entourage, his obsession with the holocaust and nazis. We also discover Sophie's deepest secrets, involving the explanation for the movie's name : Sophie's Choice. Maybe their unexplainable love became more understandable ? They had both hidden secrets, had both been broken by the war. Perhaps that's what pulled them to each other? Nathan and Sophie's love is still complexe and difficult to explain to me, but I think I can imagine what these people felt.

It goes without saying why Sophie and Stingo couldn't stay together. At least to me. Stingo couldn't understand that Sophie wasn't able to have a family, kids, a happy marriage and forget what had happened to her. Perhaps that's the reason she loved Nathan; she didn't feel the obligation. 

Sophie returned to Nathan, and together they made an end to the life they didn't want to live anymore. 

But after all, perhaps love just simply isn't explainable at all.