LE CHOIX DE SOFIA ★★★★
By Adrian Perez, Lonely Wolf London International Film Festival, Spring 2021
"Le Choix De Sofia--which translates Sophie's Choice--finds its more "progressive" heroine confronted with a less horrific choice to her 1982 predecessor (in Meryl Streep), but a slow-burning and soul-destroying one nevertheless; one that much like Naomi Klein's famous quote disclaims upon the film's commencement, requires a total suspension of one's moral belief infrastructure at the expense of one's survival in a highly capitalist Matrix.
Alain Deslongchamps triumphs in his architectural sculpting of a world that engulfs Sofia into unsustainable materialism, clinical corporate panorama and ultimately a self-confined solitary existence devoid of socio-emotional connection.
Véronique Gallant sophisticatedly peels off Sofia's facade of a self-reliant and efficient business matriarch and workaholic, whose secret inferiority complex at the hands of her inexperienced male colleagues, ultimately lead her down a downward spiral that sees her cancel on her girlfriends and work into the night on an already-immaculate report. Le Choix De Sofia's finds unquestionable high-class achievements in both its intricate character- and world-building; it's in the film's overall tempo-rhythmic and editorial assemblage that Deslongchamps's tale of corporate dystopia implores the same level of minutiae and omnipresence to take this short spectacle all the way into stratosphere.
