"Meryl Streep could play Batman and be the right choice."
Finished Sophie's Choice last night, and I have to say: I didn't care for it. Meryl Streep, I will say, was amazing, and Kevin Kline was pretty good too. However, the style of storytelling just wasn't my cup of tea. I had no idea what the movie was about - I had to let my brain go into "academic" mode to try to pick out what was so powerful about the movie, or why the main... plot? managed to hold the movie together.
I think, if nothing else, the movie is interesting for its complex layering of truth and lies and deceit, as well as the component of language in lying. Certainly it is a commentary on suffering and guilt, but without lies and confusion, nothing would have brought Nathan, Sophie, and Stingo together in the really bizarre story that unfolds in the movie.
That, I think, was what kept me emotionally distant from the movie. I could not figure out exactly what story - or whose - was being told. There are little snippets of his past, but the story doesn't seem to be Stingo's, despite the fact that he's the narrator and that the story is framed by his coming to Brooklyn and then leaving. Sophie doesn't change; it's only what we accept as "truth" that changes. And Nathan is there largely as a prop for the others. Stingo's attraction to Sophie is, as far as I can tell, inexplicable, as are a number of other incidents in the movie.
While I don't deny the quality of the acting, I failed to really understand why it is considered such a good movie, a classic of contemporary filmmaking.
And now it's headed back to Neflix, and I'm either going to get Caddyshack or Ferris Bueller's Day Off!
I think, if nothing else, the movie is interesting for its complex layering of truth and lies and deceit, as well as the component of language in lying. Certainly it is a commentary on suffering and guilt, but without lies and confusion, nothing would have brought Nathan, Sophie, and Stingo together in the really bizarre story that unfolds in the movie.
That, I think, was what kept me emotionally distant from the movie. I could not figure out exactly what story - or whose - was being told. There are little snippets of his past, but the story doesn't seem to be Stingo's, despite the fact that he's the narrator and that the story is framed by his coming to Brooklyn and then leaving. Sophie doesn't change; it's only what we accept as "truth" that changes. And Nathan is there largely as a prop for the others. Stingo's attraction to Sophie is, as far as I can tell, inexplicable, as are a number of other incidents in the movie.
While I don't deny the quality of the acting, I failed to really understand why it is considered such a good movie, a classic of contemporary filmmaking.
And now it's headed back to Neflix, and I'm either going to get Caddyshack or Ferris Bueller's Day Off!