A review by wendoxford
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
4.0
Beautiful episodic look at the eponymous fictional film maker. Her life (and death) as seen through the eyes of those closest to her - lover, brother, the subject of her first film, husband, her producer. All draw a difficult, unlikeable character of genius and, even in compilation, none capture her essence or even a pretence of understanding her. It begs many questions about how she used people to achieve her own ends and how her moodswings/mercurial nature were both her creative genius and her self-destruction.
The compulsive nature of the cleverly worked writing is that each viewpoint adds to the layers of a woman who cannot juggle - her life is myopic and yet her creativity spectral. The fact that all the voices/testimonies overlap to form a very real character but no detail is repeated which only underlines Sophie Stark's fragility, self-containment and her obsessions.
The compulsive nature of the cleverly worked writing is that each viewpoint adds to the layers of a woman who cannot juggle - her life is myopic and yet her creativity spectral. The fact that all the voices/testimonies overlap to form a very real character but no detail is repeated which only underlines Sophie Stark's fragility, self-containment and her obsessions.