IMDb > Mrs. Soffel (1984)
Mrs. Soffel
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Mrs. Soffel (1984) More at IMDbPro »


Overview

User Rating:
6.0/10   1,369 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?

Down 2% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Director:

Gillian Armstrong

Writer:

Ron Nyswaner (writer)

Contact:

View company contact information for Mrs. Soffel on IMDbPro.

Release Date:

26 December 1984 (USA) more

Genre:

Drama | Romance more

Tagline:

A true story

Plot:

Peter Soffel is the stuffy warden of a remote American prison around the turn of the century. His wife... more | add synopsis

Plot Keywords:

more

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 nomination more

NewsDesk:
(2 articles)

Matthew Modine: The Hollywood Interview
 (From The Hollywood Interview. 2 November 2009, 10:20 AM, PST)

Red Carpet Lineup
 (From FilmExperience. 8 August 2009, 2:28 PM, PDT)

User Comments:

Ignored, overlooked, forgotten. And why? more (19 total)


Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Additional Details

Runtime:

110 min | 112 min (TCM print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1 more

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Filming Locations:

Elora, Ontario, Canada more


Fun Stuff

Trivia:

The jail used in the movie is the actual Allegheny County Jail that figures in the story. Designed by noted architect Henry Hobson Richardson, built between 1884-1888, it served as a jail until 1995 and is now used by the juvenile and family sections of the Common Pleas Court. more

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Hitcher: 'How Do These Movies Get Made?' (2003) (V) more


FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful.
Ignored, overlooked, forgotten. And why?, 26 June 2006
8/10
Author: ecjones1951 from United States

"Mrs. Soffel" is a wonderful movie I have seen many times, but the last viewing was so many years ago I'm watching it right now on TCM.

I'm a sucker for movies whose main characters suddenly, inexplicably make a decision which goes against everything they seem to embody, or at least that which the viewer has come to know about them.

In early 20th-century America, the lot of a wife, even that of a well-to-do-man and mother to lovely children, was a lonely, empty, barren existence. In a wealthy household with servants, there was very little meaningful work for the mistress of the house to do every day.

Even the layers upon layers of clothes Victorian women wore served no practical purpose except to restrict movement and render their wearers merely decorative. Express your opinions and you got packed off to visit relatives in hopes that maybe the change of scenery would "do you good." There were millions of avenues for creative expression and enterprise that were simply cut off for women.

Good minds went to waste. Souls shriveled and died.

Kate Soffel (Diane Keaton) was the wife of a prison warden in Pittsburgh at the turn of the last century. She served as something of a missionary to the prisoners, giving them Bibles, holding prayer readings with them and hoping to guide them towards remorse and redemption. She never expects to fall in love with one of the inmates. But fall she does, for the charming Ed Biddle (Mel Gibson), who along with his brother Jack, (Matthew Modine) are in jail on murder charges.

Kate is suffocating; the Biddles are desperate. Prone to fits of melancholy and depression, plagued with fears that she is not a good mother and that she has failed her husband -- whom she has come to learn she really doesn't know very well -- Kate, like so many women of her era, is desperate for something to end the tedium, the frustration, the despair. She is a perfect candidate for the dangerous voyage she helps plan and sets out on with the Biddle brothers.

"Mrs. Soffel" raises many ethical and moral issues, among them the divergent path Kate takes from her religious teachings, and the Biddle brothers' guilt or innocence. It can be appreciated equally on one or more levels, but it remains a remarkably restrained depiction of emotions and passion that are anything but.

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