Anna Karenina Review

One of literature’s greatest novels adapted for the screen with nods to Baz Luhrmann, Bertold Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski? It sounds unnatural – the three are not natural bedfellows (especially not Brecht and Stanislavski, as any student of drama can attest to), but they come together to dazzling effect in Joe Wright and Sir Tom Stoppard’s absorbing and exciting version of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which succeeds in its quest to become so much more than just another costume drama.

The 800-900 page novel, depending on which version you have, tells the story of Anna (Keira Knightley), a socialite in her late twenties who is seemingly contentedly married to an intensely moral high-ranking government official, Karenin (Jude Law). Her life, and Russian society as a whole, however, is thrown into chaos when she meets and falls for a dashing young cavalry officer, Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Although the novel discusses everything from agricultural processes to balls and hunting parties and has several subplots involving Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), Kitty (Alicia Vikander), Kitty’s sister Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) and her husband Oblonsky (Matthew Macfayden) who ALSO happens to be Anna’s brother, Stoppard’s screenplay does a remarkable job of compressing their various attitudes, actions and relationships into a 130-minute running time.

 
Director Wright, who made his name with period adaptations Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, which both starred Knightley, was obviously wary of treading the same path again, and the decision he made to set almost the entire film in a run-down theatre is a bold, inspired and ironic one, considering that Tolstoy generally hated the theatre. It makes several appearances in the novel as a place where the upper-set gathers to socialise as much as watch the acting or operatic performances, and here it highlights the artificiality (much of the Russian nobility’s manners and conventions were learnt from the French) and disloyalty of their lives, notably in a ball scene where the women silently and audibly judge Anna behind her back for her carrying on with Vronsky – because she “broke the rules”, she must be cast out of her social circles. At other times throughout the film, backdrops rise, people scurry about in the wings and above the stage, extras on a dancefloor freeze in place as Anna and Vronsky whirl through and around them in one of Wright’s signature long takes and, indeed, his direction throughout the first third of the film as the scenes are set is filled with verve and style, tapering off as the plot progresses. However, although there is much to admire, the technique nevertheless has the effect of distancing the viewer and keeping them at arm’s length – perhaps it is its intention that we identify with Levin, the only character we see leaving the theatre to return home to his land and in search of a “real” life.

We focus, then, on the performances, which are as naturalistic as we have come to expect. At the risk of sounding unfair given that most of the character development and changes are described internally rather than externally in the novel, Knightley, tasked with conveying the variety of emotions and conflicts that Anna experiences over its course, does her best but just falls short. Taylor-Johnson, who was fantastic in his breakthrough, Nowhere Boy, as John Lennon, has been rather underwhelming since, and his Vronsky comes across as an arrogant, conceited schoolboy (which is more or less how he comes across in real life) rather than a charming, Rhett Butler-esque cad. When the two need you to be moved, they ultimately fail and, for a film presenting itself as a love story, this is fatal. Law, Macdonald, Vikander, Gleeson and Macfayden are far better, the first four providing levity (with Gleeson’s gradually-blossoming relationship with Vikander far more touching than that between Anna and Vronsky), while Macfayden performs well as the film’s comic relief.

Although Knightley and Taylor-Johnson make for an unconvincing central pair, the skill of the supporting cast coupled with Tom Stoppard’s almost flawless script as well as Joe Wright’s daring and innovative directorial decisions make this a whirlwind, intoxicating adaptation of Anna Karenina.

4/5