Anna Karenina (2012)

Unfortunately it is indeed out! I have been waiting to see this version of Anna Karenina forever. I have recently read this book, and this version is the worst production. I said OK, Keira as Anna, it will be difficult to watch, her being such an inappropriate actress for this role, but in the end all the other parts of the movie made me say this is a huge waste of time... If you haven't read the book it will be very difficult to understand what this movie is about. The actors are poor, except Jude Law, their accent is also bad. The fact that they turned it into a low-budget movie just makes me really upset. It is over-directed, it is a kitsch.

Fmovies: Closed in and Claustrophobic: I felt I could breathe only when the scenes escaped outside of the theater stage and onto the snow covered train depot or the green fields where Levin was sowing grass, or where love was a lazy-day picnic on the greenest of grasses, but only briefly and only disappointingly, after again finding myself cramped and stifled in a hot sweltering and old 19th century theater.

The ball room scene was excruciating. The dances and dancers themselves reminded me of a mix of street dance, country and western, and some invented Tim Burtonesque "Danse Macabre" for the purposes of being unique, strange, and possibly "histrionic". The moves were stiff and unflattering and I was embarrassed to watch Anna and Vronsky clumsily make there way through the physical distortions that made their clothes appear ill-fitting and as though they both had two left feet.

I could not feel the same passionate love between Anna and Vronsky in this movie adaptation as I'd previously felt in reading the novel. The emphasis on cinematic style and surrealism kept interrupting my wish to re-live and enjoy the story. Further, contradictory to the memories of my mind's eye of the handsome and manly Vronsky in the novel, I came to see him in the movie as bit effeminate-looking, weak, and depicted as a vulnerable little mommy's boy.

I paid my ticket expectant and hopeful but at the end and as I exited the theater I found myself confused, disappointed, and ripped-off.

Anna Karenina will always be one of the greatest experiences in literature I've had the pleasure of. But next time, as surely there will be yet a "next time", I'll simply pass on the movie.

I simply cannot bear the risk of seeing Vronsky look like that again.

Director Joe Wright's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel Anna Karenina is one of the most visually stunning and artistically bold films I've seen in quite some time. Wright places most of his plot within the confines of a dilapidated theatre and has his actors make use of the stage, stalls and behind the scenes areas when forming the sets of late Tsarist Saint Petersburg. Actors will walk from one part of the theatre to another with sets and costumes changing around them, all with the hustle and bustle of both a real theatre and lively city. It's a stylistic decision which was probably met with scepticism by studio bosses and the like but works incredibly well to bring to life the characters which themselves are so wonderfully written by Tolstoy.

Joe Wright was lucky in a way in that he started off with a fantastic story, written by Tolstoy. This was then adapted by Oscar winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard who handed Wright and his cast a beautifully well crafted script which despite its complexities, rolls of the tongues of the talented cast. I have never read the source novel and have in fact never managed to finish any of the great works of Russian literature (the names don't help) so the plot was new to me. The themes of love, infidelity, trust and city vs countryside-life charge out of the screen and most are tackled very well. One area which I thought was slightly forgotten was the fascinating part of the plot regarding Levin (Domhnall Gleeson). Levin is in love with an attractive and highly sought after young Princess, Kitty (Alicia Vikander). His tale of love, family, hardship and politics feels slightly brushed to one side which is a shame as his arc also points towards the social upheaval which would greet Russia in the coming decades.

The first half of this film was probably my favourite half of any I've seen in the cinema this year. It whizzed along thanks to the dialogue, plot and interesting design. The problems that I have with some period dramas such as dull ideas and duller characters felt a million miles away as I watched, transfixed with a smile on my face. The highlight of the entire film for me was a ball in which some of the central characters danced. This was a scene full of careful manoeuvring, examination and lust as the two lovers become intimate for the first time. Onlookers watch on as Anna and Count Vronsky dance a waltz to an ever quickening pace. Kitty watches with horror as she sees the man she thought was hers slip away. The dancing itself is beautifully choreographed and came as close to art as I've seen dance be. Due in part to the nature of the story, the second half of the film doesn't quite live up to the pace or intensity of the opening half but is nonetheless interesting, dark and impressive.

There are three things which make Anna Karenina one of my favourite films of 2012 so far. The first is the story, the second is the direction and the third is the acting. Every single member of the cast dazzles here with not one actor giving a misjudged or poor performance. The standout for me is Jude Law whose mild mannered and restrained performance is simply incredible. He maintains grace and dignity despite having a terrible spell thanks to Anna and Law manages to convey all of his emotions in a similar understated way to Gary Oldman did with Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He also makes the audience feel incredibly empathetic towards his character. For an actress I'm not particularly fond of, Keira Knightly has somehow found hers

Anna Karenina fmovies. If an award were given for over-directing, this would win hands down. it's a tribute to Tolstoy that his story came through the fog of metaphor and cliché, from the stage set play-within-a-movie (our only guess as to meaning is that they were skimping on location shooting) to actors twirling around each other to tearing up letters (and with them any semblance of meaning to life) - to the point of tossing the scraps up, only to come down as snow (could it get worse?).

With a story like Anna Karenina it seems the director's only job would be to decide which parts to omit; instead, Joe Wright has decided to turn it into a soap opera. It's as if he were doing Shakespearean sonnets and correcting the rhyme and meter.

And casting Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky? When he first came out I thought they'd done a spoof. He reminded me of Gene Wilder in a Mel Brooks version of Tolstoy. On the other hand, Jude Law was perfect as Karenin, as were Domnhall Gleeson as Levin and Olivia Williams as Countess Vronskaya. Sadly, Keira Knightly seems to have thought she was still doing Pirates of the Caribbean, as far from Tolstoy as you can be.

How two marvelously creative men, Wright who did Atonement and Stoppard who gave us the incredible Coast of Utopia, could do this is beyond comprehension.

This new "adaptation" is nonsense. Tolstoy's novel is about a woman who belonged to the upper class that governed the Great Russia, the country extending from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean, from Arctics to Afghanistan. Why is that Vonsky's mother, a princess by the title, is sharing a bench with senator Karenin's wife in a second class car where her son, price Vronsky finds them somewhere between third and the 4th raw? Their wealth allowed them to travel in a separate car and they often did! We were told from the screen that it was Russia of 1874. Well then how comes that Anna's "son" plays with train toys that run... on batteries? The cancan was normal for the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse, but not for the aristocracy of Russian Empire exactly because it contradicted to aristocratic education and highly developed sense of taste. And amidst all of this nonsense we hear a bunch of "sub–Russian" "aj-lu-lu" songs that would be appropriate for the poor villagers but not for the Russian Aristocracy of this time. The movie appears to be staged in the backstage of a Café chantant. I was shocked to see that there is a hen sitting on the bookcase in Oblonsky's study. And why the Karenin's bedroom is situated in a huge hall with many columns in it? And his servants dressed as servants in bistro? Servants of aristocracy had to wear "la livrea", a livery, a uniform! I have impression that ladies jewelries were rented from a local Macy's store, while the entire picture was filmed in an abandoned provincial theater with broken walls and bad floor. And please notice that soup Marie-Louise is always with asparagus, so it is as inappropriate to mention this to the guests of Stiva Oblonsky's dinner. Extremely bad taste is obvious from about all scenes of the film. But so is the idea of this movie. We were offered just another attempt to present an adultère with a little bit attachment to un époux Russe. Unlike the world of commoners, Anna was not granted the freedom of choice because her divorce and remarriage was to be approved by the Most Holly Sinod, and the divorce lawyer, who was omitted from the film, was quite clear about this issue in his conversation with Karenin. This is why the drama had to be moved from the formal level to individual qualities of the people involved. And the only one who in my opinion reached this goal on behalf of Tolsoy was Jude Law, who was excellent as new Karenin lacking the common impression of a ridiculed husband. I understand that the "stamping" clerks from Oblonsky's office was added to the whole venture by Mrs. Wright and Stoppard as a token of their appreciation of Russian Avant-garde theatre, but it only enhanced the feeling of totally lost control over the flow of the drama. I am greatly disappointed. In my opinion, this film lacks good taste, understanding of Tolstoy's original idea, understanding of the characters, the time and circumstances of the drama, which together constitute a minimum requirement for a fair cinematography for classics adaptation. Don't even think to offer this thing to Russian viewers, because it will cause nothing but a belly laugh. Try to find and enjoy the Anna Karenina (1967) directed by great Aleksandr Zarkhi: this is a true piece of art, colorful and careful to every detail, the highest expression of a family drama without exits that explains its tragic end.

I adore the novel, so I will be discussing Joe Wright's take on it and where it ranks amongst other adaptations but I will of course look at its merits as a film aside from the novel.

As a whole adaptation, this version falls somewhere in the middle. Even without all the metatheatrical trappings, it still took an interesting and valid approach to the novel, proving that the novel could be adapted until infinity and it would still be fresh each time. As readers of the novel would know, there is much more to it than Anna's affair. Tolstoy did not write vague types: he wrote fully-fleshed characters, and Tom Stoppard's screenplay acknowledged Tolstoy's style. Therefore I don't want to condemn the film outright because that would overshadow the things that it does get right.

Keira Knightley's version of Anna is not nearly as bad as you would think. She has the sense to restrain herself a little so that the many other elements of the novel shine through. She goes for the unsympathetic approach and it works. All her mannerisms that I generally find annoying- the schoolgirl smirking and rampant nymphomania- actually work for this role. This Anna takes Vronsky just because she can, and then ultimately regrets it. We can feel her frustration: she's young and wants to have fun but she's tied down to a stuffy older husband. In that sense, it's quite a modern interpretation, but not hideously so.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Count Vronsky was just miscast. If the novel had been about Anna seducing a schoolboy, he would have been great, but Vronsky is meant to be a dashing man. The styling is atrocious- he looks like a seventies Scandinavian Eurovision entry. Wright seems to have told some of the actors to act realistic and some to play up to the stylised setting. Taylor-Johnson plays the artifice so much that he just comes off as camp and sleazy. The scene where he is about to ride Frou Frou is like a production of Equus and there's a love scene with Keira Knightley that brought to mind an old advert for Philadelphia cheese. Their revelation of love is also poorly dealt with. Anna has some kind of fantasy dream where the two have an "erotic ballet" and suddenly they're banging away, presumably now in the real world.

Jude Law as Karenin. A bizarre choice when he could have played Vronsky five years ago and might even get away with it now at a push. However, he gives a performance that is probably his best. His Karenin is a bureaucrat through and through. Other adaptations have still made Karenin an attractive option. This Karenin is certainly not going to develop any great passion soon. We also see how he is manipulated by moral guardian Countess Lydia. If Law is trying to make a reputation as a serious actor, he's on the right path.

And what about all that pretentious theatre stuff? It seriously slows down the pace in the first third but once you get used to it, you can just enjoy the film. The ending is rather abrupt (no, that famous ending is not the last scene) but quite poignant.