SOPHIE’S CHOICE, William Styron’s lauded, controversial novel, had been a prize-winning bestseller for three years before its 1982 transference into a searing film. Alan J. Pakula adapted the dense 562 pages into 150 minutes of screen time, directing and co-producing as well. $11,000,000 invested returned $30,036,000, the year’s 23rd most-attended feature. Raves from critics and peers ensured Meryl Streep a Best Actress Oscar for her astounding disappearance into ‘Zofia Zawistowska’: Polish immigrant to late 40’s America, walking dead survivor of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

Budding novelist ‘Stingo’ (Peter MacNicol) moves from small-town Virginia to Brooklyn in 1947 where he becomes neighbor, then close friends with an attractive but tormented couple. ‘Nathan Landau’ (Kevin Kline) is a self-proclaimed genius, whose moods swing without warning from vibrant to vicious, especially concerning his lover Sophie, her sweet exterior covering a soul wracked by her experiences in a concentration camp. The naive author-to-be gets a harsh, unforgettable short-course in life’s random grab bag of beauty and brutality, hope and horror.

MacNicol, 27, had appeared in one film, the dark fantasy Dragonslayer. In a difficult role, he’s competent but not compelling, the uncharismatic Stingo too callow to warm up to. In his film debut, Kline, 34, has charisma to burn, a dynamo of catlike energy and whip-quick wit. His rapier interpretations of Nathan’s ungovernable temper explosions are caustic showstoppers. Streep’s shattered Sophie isn’t allowed Nathan’s/Kline’s grandstand flamboyance; her playing is a miracle of subtlety reflected by the haunted, vanquished look in her eyes, minute but telling gestures, body language and sublime vocal nuance. She’s beyond excellent.

Along with Streep’s laurel (her nearest competitor that year was Jessica Lange’s Frances), the Academy justifiably nominated the Screenplay, Cinematography, Music Score and Costume Design. Marvin Hamlisch’s lovely score, his finest, should have won over the gushpuppy that John Williams strained for E.T. (phone home, but we call’em as we hear’em). *

With fine work from Stephen D. Newman (Nathan’s resigned brother), Greta Turkin (‘Leslie Lapidus’, sex-obsessed neurotic), Günther Maria Halmer (Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz), Melanie Pianka (Hoess’ viperish daughter), Karlheinz Hackl (the SS sadist who orders Sophie’s choice), Jennifer Lawn (Sophie’s daughter, whose screams will (should) rend your heart), Rita Karin and Josh Mostel.  Narrated by Josef Sommer, perhaps laying on the Southern Gothic syrup a mite thick.

* Astonishingly, author Styron had in mind Ursula Andress for the role. Just because someone can craft a paragraph with more skill than “Mike at the gas station” doesn’t mean they also hold the best answers for any other circumstance. It seems insane, but Margaret Mitchell wanted Rhett Butler to be played by…Groucho Marx. What if—for a zany example—vast numbers of our fellow citizens picked their Presidents with such keen deliberation? What if many of those leader followers were consumed with the same hateful zeal as those who made Sophie choose?