While I've always thought of Meryl Streep as a great actress, she surpasses my praise in this film. To see her speak her lines, to hear the delicate phrasing of not only her Polish, but her German with a Polish accent, then later, her English with a Polish accent, an altogether brutally difficult accomplishment, leaves me breathless. Beyond that skill, there's her transference to the character, Sophie, and to the main test as an actress, the absorption of the unspeakable atmosphere of a place -- the camp at Auschwitz -- of wholesale pain, indescribable humiliation, and the final acceptance of death of her child to save another. I'm sure the author of the book wept too in seeing his creation come to life as Meryl Streep.