Review: Anna Karenina

I always thought arranged marriages in nineteenth-century Russia were meant to be happy and devoid of drama. I guess that’s why Anna Karenina seemed so surprising to me. But, I […]


I always thought arranged marriages in nineteenth-century Russia were meant to be happy and devoid of drama. I guess that’s why Anna Karenina seemed so surprising to me. But, I might as well say it—

No, I didn’t read the book. It’s long. Like, really long, and I just don’t have the time to read 1,500 pages (although it may or may not be significantly shorter.) This being said, Joe Wright’s recent adaptation of the Tolstoy classic is excellent. See, I cut to the chase and told you what I think. Take note, Russians, it doesn’t take 500 chapters to make a point.

In Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, and in his most recent work, Joe Wright takes much of the slowness of great literature and creates energetic, beautiful pieces of cinema. He has also done this three times with an actress who—up until now—didn’t always measure up to my expectations.

I’ve always wanted to like Keira Knightley, but there’s that annoying thing about her acting—where she doesn’t do it. But on the third try, Keira and Joe have done it right.

In Anna Karenina, she shows mastery over moments of great, unbounded passion. Yet this is also an Anna who knows what’s at stake, and is pained because she just won’t let herself avoid risks. She isn’t unaware that she’ll be hurting a great many people with her indiscretion: the young Kitty (Alicia Vikander), or her husband, Count Karenin (Jude Law).

Aaron Taylor-Johnson complements Knightley wonderfully as Vronsky, and Matthew Macfayden also deserves praise as the movie’s only comic relief in the role of Jim Broadbent—who has, for some reason, been renamed Stiva Oblonsky in this adaptation.

So, I offer complete praise for Keira Knightley’s performance and that of the cast. Now, about that setting—

I was definitely hesitant when I first heard that the movie would be essentially set “within a theatre”. And, for the most part, the entire movie is actually set within a dilapidated theatre. Well, it completely works. The swipes between the theatre and the more “conventional” settings are seamless. At one point, when the stage opens to an actual location shot (it’s snow, but still), the effect is not unlike Dorothy walking from black-and-white into Technicolor.

Films are often criticised for what they could have been, rather than what they are. Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina could have been a dry TV special with some dramatic incidental music and the biggest dresses you’ve ever seen. But it isn’t; Wright has provided us with a beautiful film, and it isn’t just grand spectacle and lush fields that make it that way, but also cords of rope and peeling paint. Will some people criticise Anna Karenina for straying as far from the novel as I’m assuming it does? Well, even perfect adaptations aren’t invulnerable from this criticism. I am sure it won’t be a film loved by everyone, but it is a film to be loved passionately by those who do.

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