Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina

Directed by: Joe Wright

Starring: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Grade: B-

Art imitates life in Joe Wright's new adaptation of the classic Tolstoy work. The pedigree is outstanding with Wright helming a script from Tom Stoppard and an all-star cast to boot, not to mention a high concept design to separate it from a typical period piece. So why was I left feeling a little underwhelmed? It's a solid film from Wright, but it doesn't hold par with his better works Atonement and Pride and Prejudice.

Anna Karenina (Knightley) follows the titular character who is in a loveless marriage to her husband (Law) who couldn't be more distant. When she happens upon a dashing young man (Johnson) her passion is ignited. And against societal rules and customs, and at the expense of everyone around them, and perhaps even themselves, they continue their affair, following it through to the last. Strong themes of jealousy, love, passion, marriage, and Tolstoyan social commentary abound. Can one build happiness on another's pain?

Knightley is luminous as the complex and difficult Anna. She is insecure, indecisive, impulsive, and trapped. We begin the film feeling for her, with such an unfeeling husband what self-respecting women wouldn't choose passion? We feel the Jane Eyre creeping in. However, Eyre, Tolstoy is not. There are great repercussions for this act against god, and Anna doesn't seem prepared for them. She is not so willing to give up the life being married to her husband has afforded her, and face the shame that comes with being a divorcee. As she flip-flops between the two men, our empathy wanes. She goes from trapped and the victim, to a selfish, cold-hearted, emotional tornado that is destroying everything around her and herself. Knightley goes for it with considerable aplomb.

However, she is not propped up the way she should be, and this is mostly Wright's fault. He gets the best out of her performance wise, but here he seems to have fallen in love with his concept of setting the entire film as taking place on a stage. Scenery comes and goes, some is 2D, toy models, and there are backstage areas. And aesthetically, these are all beautiful. The actors and scenes are sometimes performed in a Baz Luhrman-ish overly presentational style which adds considerable thematic interest. Stage lighting, frozen actors, and the choreography of some of the scenes are brilliant. Also, Wright's long tracking dolly shots are here, and the way he segues seamlessly between scenes is breathtaking at times. But this over-stylized production design is in great contrast with what is viewed as the pinnacle of realist fiction. In fact it's a polar opposite.Cognitive dissonance radiates throughout the film.

Knightley is supported by a dream cast, with Law doing his best not to be wooden with such a bore of a character, but who is so earnest and so forgiving that it is he who we end up siding with by the third act. And his cold, arms-length, calculated, distracted disposition that the film's style resembles. Not the hot-blooded passion and overwhelming emotions that Anna grows to experience. In fact as she heats up, the film cools off. Johnson doesn't have off the charts chemistry with Knightley, nor does he smolder like I imagine the character should. 

The subplot of Levin and Kitty's love, the real love, which echoes Tolstoy's views on the matter, is nice, but seems at odds when we break for it, when I'm ready to build with Anna. Levin and his story is also the only story allowed to leave the confines of the theatre, representing the real aspect of love, but it is a jarring effect. Levin is essentially Tolstoy in the film, and is one of the few reasonable characters. But he's basically charisma-less, so doesn't leave the lasting impression he should. 

The film's emotional climax also happens to soon, leaving the last 30 minutes as falling action, so when it leads to the shocking conclusion, there is no proper build. It just sort of happens. Wright takes a sizable chance with such a take on classic literature, and that is to be applauded. And the film is technically brilliant, features a wonderful lead performance, but it just doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. You're left remembering all of the wrong things, like many of the characters, unable to focus and to see what is really important.