Sophie's Choice

Variety by

Sophie's Choice is a handsome, doggedly faithful and astoundingly tedious adaptation of William Styron's best-seller.

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

The picture is completely devoid of cinematic interest, adopting instead a tiresome theatrical aesthetic in which showy monologues are filmed in interminable, usually ill-chosen long takes.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

The overall result is a serious though harrowing journey into the dark corners of this century, marked by a compassionate approach and even a fillip of optimism at the end.

The New York Times by Janet Maslin

Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott

The film is a respectable, claustrophobic and slick piece of work, and cinematographer Nestor Almendros' color strategies - Rembrandt-like light at night, lemony tones during the day, desaturated sepia at Auschwitz - are arty to a fault. [14 Dec 1982]

The Dissolve by Keith Phipps

Alan J. Pakula’s 1982 adaptation of William Styron’s 1979 novel Sophie’s Choice is one of those films whose great qualities put its lesser elements in sharp relief.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Sophie's Choice is a fine, absorbing, wonderfully acted, heartbreaking movie.