Stingo: You changed all the furniture around?
Sophie: Yeah, you like it? I do that when I can't sleep, you know? It's good, because then you don't have -you don't have to think about anything.
Stingo: Well, then I'll try that.
Sophie: Oh, no. Stingo. You do not have to move furniture. You will move mountains.
Nathan [After reading Stingo's manuscript]: On this bridge on which so many great Americans writers stood and reached out for words to give America its voice, looking toward the land that gave them Whitman...from its Eastern edge dreamt his country's future and gave it words...on this span of which Thomas Wolfe and Hart Crane wrote, we welcome Stingo into that pantheon of the Gods, whose words are all we know of immortality. To Stingo!
Stingo [Narrating]: How could I've failed to have the most helpless crush on such a generous mind and life enlarging mentor? Nathan was utterly, fatally glamorous.
Sophie's Choice is one of those movies that everyone knows about. The phrase "Sophie's Choice" has become conversationally synonymous for any impossible decision.
It is known for it's most famous scene, in which Sophie is forced to choose which of her 2 children will be killed at Auschwitz.
It's a horribly tragic movie. I avoided watching it for a long time, but finally gave in to my desire to see Meryl Streep as Sophie. It is rightfully considered one of the best performances in cinematic history. Meryl Streep is amazing in most everything (I wasn't a big fan of her in Mamma Mia!, but most everything), but this was one of her most powerful roles. Aside from her incredible acting, her accent is impeccable (she always nails the accents), and her appearance alters so drastically from her haggard, post-Auschwitz appearance to her dolled up, healthier (but still haunted) look. There is an omniprescent fragility about Sophie, and it becomes increasingly apparent as we get to know her throughout the movie:
Stingo: You tried to commit suicide in Auschwitz?
Sophie: No, it was after that. After that, I was in -after liberation.
Stingo: After you were safe?
Sophie: Yes, safe, yeah. I was safe, I was in Sweden. I was in that refugee camp. I mean, that was good. They try to help you, you know? They try, but I knew that Christ had turned his face away from me, and that only a Jesus who no longer cared for me could kill those people that I love, but leave me alive with my shame.
Kevin Kline is also great as Nathan, her schizophrenic lover. I genuinely found him terrifying. He could be so sweet, funny, and mild-mannered and suddenly so violent and deranged and dangerous. He helped to save Sophie when they first met and she was extremely ill, and she is irrevocably intertwined with him, even though he is terribly abusive to her in his rages:
Sophie: Don't go away from me, please! You know we need each other! We need each other!
Nathan: Me, need you? Let me tell you something! I need you like a goddamn disease I can't name! I need you like a case of Anthrax, hear me? Like "triquonosys"! I need you like a biliary calculus, palegra, encephalitis -"Bright's" disease, for Christ's sake! "Parsinoma" of the brain! I need you like death! Hear me? Like death!
Sophie: No, Nathan!
Nathan: Go back to Krakow, baby. Back to Krakow!
My theory is that she is so damaged by the numerous unspeakable losses she experienced during the war that she either cannot lose one more person in her life, or she is punishing herself for the guilt she feels and thinks she deserves his ire, while basking in the distraction of his kinder moments.
Peter MacNichol is Stingo, the narrator and main character who wanders into their world. He's there to tell us their story, and watches Nathan and Sophie with fascination, getting drawn into their lives and falling in love with Sophie. But Sophie is too far gone to be reached:
Stingo: Sophie, I want to understand. I'd love to know the truth.
Sophie: The truth? It does not make it easier to understand. And maybe you think that find out the truth about me and you'll understand me and then you'd forgive me for all those...for all my lies.
Stingo: I promise I'll never leave you.
Sophie: You must never promise that. No one -no one should ever promise that! The truth? I don't even know what is the truth.
Her suicide in the end (alongside Nathan) feels sadly inevitable.
While worth seeing once, I doubt many people would want to watch it a second time. It's too painful.
For a taste of how Sophie's Choice has made its way into today's popular culture, see some humorous TV references below:
The Simpsons
Mayor Quimby [During a flu shot shortage]: Please use your time in line wisely to Sophie's Choice your child.
Apu [Only able to save one Squishee machine]: Whoa, whoa. Which flavor do I save, the Radical Red or the Blueberry Blast? Oh, curse this Squishee's choice.
The Big Bang Theory
Sheldon: Now you see what you’ve done? Because of you, we’re all going to miss Stan Lee.
Leonard: Whoa! What do you mean all?
Sheldon: Well, you’re my friends. You’ll be standing by my side, supporting me, feeding me legal precedents, and if you had the upper body strength, carrying me out on your shoulders when I’m victorious.
Leonard: Yeah, okay. No.
Sheldon: Are you saying that you will not stand beside me as I plead my case?
Leonard: That’s what I’m saying.
Sheldon: Howard?
Howard: Wow. Uh, Stan Lee, or you in court? Uh, if this was Sophie’s Choice it would’ve been a much shorter movie. No.
Leonard: Some guy is auctioning off a miniature time machine prop from the original film and no-one is bidding on it.
Howard: A time machine from the movie The Time Machine?
Leonard: No, a time machine from Sophie’s Choice.
Raj: Boy, Sophie could have used a time machine in that movie. Did you see it, it’s rough.
Grey's Anatomy
Cristina: It's Sophie's choice.
Meredith: It's Sophie's choice?
Lexie: I've never seen that movie.
Cristina: Well, you should. It's really funny.
Frasier
Roz: Well, don't just stare at her, make a move!
Frasier: I will, Roz. Tonight's the night. By the finalé I will have made my overture. Dad, would you please come with me?
Martin: To the opera? What do you need me for?
Frasier: Dad, I can't go with a woman because then she'll think I'm on a date, and if I go alone she'll think I couldn't get a date.
Roz: He would look pretty pathetic.
Martin: Oh, geez!
Daphne: Or you could stay home with us and watch sad movies.
Frasier: [reads a title] "Sophie's Choice."
Martin: I'll say it is!
The Closer
Brenda: I will be pressing murder charges today, Mr. Catalina, and I need your help in deciding whether I charge Oscar by himself, or Oscar and his mother.
Mr. Catalina: Excuse me?
Brenda: Oh, come now. This is hardly "Sophie's Choice."
Friends
[Re: "If you had to give up sex or food, which would you pick?"]
Monica: Sex!
Chandler: Seriously. Answer faster.
Monica: I'm sorry, sweetie. When she said "sex" I wasn't thinking of sex with you.
Chandler: It's like a big hug.
Phoebe: Ross, how about you? Sex or food?
Ross: Sex!
Phoebe: What about sex or dinosaurs?
Ross: My God, it's like Sophie's Choice.
Phoebe: Joey, if you had to give up sex or food, which would you pick?
Joey: I don't know it's too hard.
Rachel: Come on, you have to answer.
Joey: Okay...sex. No, food. No, uh...I want both! I want girls on bread!
Phoebe: My mom's going to be here any minute. I can't do this, I can't give him up.
Rachel: Oh.
Phoebe: Yes, no, I can. I don't want to. But I can. No.
Rachel: Oh, I can't watch this. It's like "Sophie's Choice."
Monica: You know, I never saw that.
Rachel: Oh, it was only okay.
Phoebe: My mom was right. If I can't give him up, there's no way I can give up a little baby. Frank and Alice are going to be so crushed. What, what else can I give them? A kidney?
King of Queens
Doug: This is brutal. Now I either gotta fire my wife, or just let the team fall apart. It's like...it's like Sophie's Choice.
Deacon: Not really.
Doug: No? What was Sophie's Choice again?
Spence: She had to decide which of her children to give to the Nazis.
Doug: Ok, yeah, that's harder.
That 70s Show
Jackie (to Kelso): My dad thinks you're a bad influence on me, so I kept our love a secret and now I have to decide between you and money.
Eric (to Donna): Gosh, it's like Sophie's Choice for morons..
Monk
Monk [he needs to put back a can of soup, but suffers from OCD]: It's like Sophie's Choice...except...it's soup
The Office
Michael Scott: I have a very difficult decision to make. It's like last week I was at the video store. Do I rent Devil Wares Prada, again, or do I finally get around to seeing Sophie's Choice? It is what you would call a classic difficult decision.
Just Shoot Me!
I had to pick one outfit right then and there and I realize I'm down to my last eight bucks. I had to pick one outfit right then and there and leave the rest of the clothes behind. It was like Sophie's Choice, only with pants.
Modern Family
Cameron: Excuse me. Meryl Streep could play Batman and be the right choice. She’s perfection. Whether she’s divorcing Kramer, whether she’s wearing Prada, don’t even get me started on Sophie’s Choice. I get emotional thinking about it…She couldn’t forgive herself!
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