Set in late-19th-century Russia high-society, the aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.
Wright seems to have aimed for a visual equivalent to Anna’s helpless passion, one to overwhelm audiences with lustrous images and dizzying movement. He just about gets away with it.
Filled with memorable performances.
There just isn’t enough in the narrative here, or in Keira Knightley’s charismatic but rather low-key performance, to capture this shift, or to anchor the clever design fripperies in a realm of human feeling. Still, fans of lush photography (the great Seamus McGarvey did the honours) and gorgeous, old-fashioned theatrical trickery will have a nice time.
The Wright/Stoppard Anna Karenina is not a total success, but it's a bold and creative response to the novel.
There is no British director quite as ambitious as Wright when it comes to the set piece scene. Given a tale told so often before he has dared to be different, and for that he should be commended even if, like his heroine, he ultimately gives too much.
Keira Knightley's Anna Karenina is a headstrong, inescapably actressy creation, full of fussy vitality and verve.
An austerity epic it may be but stinting on the emotion is a serious minus.
It absorbs and bemuses the eye, and in the anatomy of an unforgivingly narrow society Wright has made some bold, imaginative choices. But as to why Anna Karenina ranks as a novel, perhaps the novel, of the ages, this film does not give a clue.
Beautiful but unmoving.
It’s an impressive feat, a technically dazzling experiment that won’t be to everyone’s cinematic tastes, but deserves credit for confounding expectations and, like its heroine, having the nerve to dive headlong into unchartered territory.
It’s evident that this is Wright’s most concerted effort to woo Oscar voters and make amends for the snub for his adaptation of Atonement.
If it doesn’t ultimately engage your heart as it might, Anna Karenina is period drama at its most exciting, intoxicating and modern. Spellbinding.
By the time Anna meets her own fate, I found it difficult to care.
This kind of extreme theatricality is not necessarily unsuited to cinema, but it should not become a barrier to emotional involvement.
The conceit of setting the story in a theatre is eye-catching. But this is surprisingly passionless.
Pimped, primped and dressed to the nines, Joe Wright’s Tols-toy story looks the business. Like a disappointing Christmas present, though, the pleasure quickly evaporates once you remove the shiny paper.
Heads up: Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
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Domhnall Gleeson: 'Having Levin in the mix is a really good move.'
Keira Knightley: 'I was trying to keep hold of a real, raw Anna Karenina.'
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Tom Stoppard: 'Anna Karenina comes to greif because she has fallen in love for the first time.'
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
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