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Filled with the best of life and the worst of life, this haunting drama deals with they way people view the world versus how it really is. Some have a rosy colored view out of naiveté and others use it out of survival. Director Alan J. Pakula (ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN) adapts William Styron’s novel, which is virtually a three-character story that unfolds with one unsettling discovery upon another, only increasing our captivation with the lives of the flawed characters. My memory of this film always focuses on Sophie “big shocking choice,” but upon another viewing I was gripped more with the smaller choices, even frivolous choices, that all the characters must make.

Stingo (Peter MacNicol, PORKY’S) is a young man who has left his Southern home to move to the Northern Sodom, as New York City is called by his father. He has saved a bit of money so that he can work on his great novel. At his apartment in Brooklyn, he meets the bohemian couple Sophie (Meryl Streep, ADAPTED) and Nathan (Kevin Kline, A FISH CALLED WANDA). Sophie is a survivor of Auschwitz and Nathan is her passionate lover, who saved her life when she was suffering from anemia. Their love is volatile; Stingo’s introduction to them is Nathan screaming at Sophie in the hall that he needs her like he needs anthrax. Stingo’s friendship with the duo will change the way he looks at the world, breaking down his naïve expectations.

World War II was a time of suffering and unthinkable moral compromise. How do you cope when you are forced by evil people to make choices that make you lose your humanity? The guilt that Sophie feels for her choices during the war create so much self-loathing that she is the prime candidate to be sucked into the wild ups and downs of Nathan’s personality. It’s not a healthy relationship, but when it is good, the best of life, love and friendship can be seen. Those good times are intoxicating to all the characters. Like Stingo, we come to love the greatly flawed Sophie and Nathan.

Streep’s Oscar-winning performance is one of the classic screen performances. Adding a tricky accent and two foreign languages to her challenges, she brings such nuance and emotion to the role that we are transported into her life. This deep character is only made more complex with the details that the dedicated actress brings to the part. One cannot praise it enough without sounding hyperbolic. Kline gives a powder keg performance swinging from great dramatic joy to savage brutal anger. But as wide as the emotional swings are, Kline always makes Nathan seem like one character. MacNicol has the thinnest character, but that is kind of the point. He is a young man without a great deal of life experience and MacNicol plays it well. He is in as much awe of Sophie and Nathan as we are.

Pakula balances the dual narrators of Stingo and Sophie perfectly. Sophie’s flashbacks to her time in WWII and her first meeting with Nathan never disrupt the flow, because they are like revelations — confessions to Stingo and us. Each revelation about Sophie and then Nathan add new twisted complexity to the characters. We begin to understand why they are who they are and only sympathize with them more. How amazing are these characters when we love them more, after uncovering more of their deceptions? The tragic ending seems inevitable. Regret mixed with passion is a combustible concoction — it can explode with life, but it can also just explode.