If you’ve seen Maggie Greenwald’s earlier work, you already have a good idea of the typical themes in her films. Much like Songcatcher and The Ballad of Little Jo, the period piece Sophie and the Rising Sun features a clash of cultures, a fish-out-of-water tale and a romance that ties it all together. While that structure in itself seems extremely cliché, Greenwald has been able to infuse it with great sincerity in the past. Sophie, set in 1941, has more historical depth than her previous films and doubles down on its racial commentary, but the story comes up short when it comes to the complexities of its characters and narrative suspense.
As ever, this Greenwald film is told firmly from the perspective of female characters. Anne Morrison (Margo Martindale) is a South Carolina widow whose greatest passion is her garden. Her friend, Sophie Willis (Julianne Nicholson), is an artist whose fiancé died in WWI. Their relatively quiet lives are upended when a “Chinaman” (Takashi Yamaguchi) arrives in town on the bus, severely beaten and barely conscious. Mrs. Morrison takes him into her care and enlists assistance in the form of Salome Whitmore (Lorraine Toussaint), a new maid who isn’t opposed to caring of an Asian. The two very quickly discover that the man’s name is Grover Ohta and that he’s Japanese-American.
That last fact is obvious to the viewer, as is the potential for violence given the time period. For that reason, much of Sophie‘s plot is no surprise to anyone. But that is something that Greenwald would have been acutely aware of. Unfortunately, she didn’t seek to depict Ohta’s budding relationships with his caretaker – and with Sophie – with any sense of urgency or, indeed, anything more than a leisurely (read: dull) pace. Given that Pearl Harbor is right around the corner and the U.S. is at war, it’s no surprise that the town will be wary of its new visitor and some good ol’ boys will decide to beat and stab the “yellow foreigner.” But the focal point of the film – the interracial love story between Ohta and Sophie – creeps along. They bond over painting and go on walks together, but nothing happens between them until the second half. As a result, the film has a skewed sense of narrative purpose, with more time given to generic racial discrimination than persecution based on their relationship.
And the depiction of Japanese persecution, during such a historically tense period, is augmented by the addition of Salome’s story. To an extent, this subplot would seem to be beneficial to the narrative, as it expands upon the racial commentary vis-à-vis Ohta and provides an interesting contrast between war-fueled animosity and the long-standing subjugation of African-Americans. The trouble is Sophie, an adaptation (written by Greenwald) of Augusta Trobaugh’s novel, is all too blasé about these tales of bigotry. Ohta’s story is so stereotypical that it comes across as underdeveloped, thinly drawn and certainly simplified for the sake of narrative ease. And Salome’s story is reduced to all of five minutes, ending with Sophie realizing her childhood friend was the maid – a fact she hadn’t realized before because I guess she never bothered to look at the maid.
There is plenty of opportunity in Sophie and the Rising Sun to tell not only an engaging melodramatic romance but also speak to a convergence of racial injustice in this period context. Yet even its most dramatic moments lack intensity. Greenwald maintains the gentility of a rosy vision of the past in the relaxed pace of her film, in clear contrast to a story that seeks to undermine it. Despite these flaws, the actors – especially Martindale and Yamaguchi – deliver performances beyond the stereotypes of the underwhelming script. It’s a shame, though, that a film with, sadly, such a timely message of tolerance can’t muster the necessary vigor.
The post Sophie and the Rising Sun appeared first on Spectrum Culture.