First
things first – I’ve never even come close to reading Anna Karenina, so I have no idea how this movie is as an
adaptation. I found the story to be fine
but unremarkable – I think maybe I’m just not a Russian classics person. While it’s a perfectly serviceable narrative,
I couldn’t really connect with it. However,
purely as a film, I have huge admiration for it.
The
Anna Karenina of the title is an aristocrat from 19th-century St.
Petersburg – faithful wife, devoted mother, and caring sister. When she travels to Moscow (her philandering
brother needs help convincing his wife to forgive him,) her fate is sealed by
an encounter with the passionate Count Vronsky.
One meeting is enough for her to captivate him, and he ardently pursues
an affair with her. Anna’s better
judgment gives way to her desire, and she risks everything for her dashing
lover. It’s a tale of forbidden fruit,
societal pressure and judgment, and the possibility of forgiveness.
Once
again, I haven’t read Anna Karenina,
so I don’t know how much dialogue was lifted and how much was invented by the
glorious Tom Stoppard, but the script offers plenty to feast on. I also don’t know how much to thank Stoppard,
versus director Joe Wright, for the striking use of theatrical imagery and
staging. My money’s on Stoppard for the
concept, because drawing attention to the fourth-wall framework of his story is
totally up his alley; either way, Wright executes it stunningly.
The film,
without any explanation why, unfolds largely as a play. It opens with the curtains coming up on a
stage, on which much of the action is performed. The story follows the actors into the wings
and up to the flies, and some of it is placed in a more concrete real world,
occasionally augmented by blatantly false backdrops or confetti
snowflakes. The extras move in time,
carefully choreographed, and when Anna dresses, she does so balletically. There are a number of onscreen set changes,
and sometimes the real world mentioned above makes its way onto the stage (such
as a field of grass adorning the floorboards.)
I’m not entirely sure why the film is made this way – my best bet is
that it’s a metaphor for the fishbowl of the gossiping Russian aristo society,
in which people’s lives are little more than spectacle for others to observe –
but it’s gorgeous, audacious, gripping.
I’ve seen tons and tons of costume dramas, but not one of
them looks like this.
Keira
Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (soon to be Quicksilver in The Avengers) all deliver in the lead
roles. Knightley’s Anna is messy but
sympathetic as a woman on the verge of tearing down her world, Law’s Karenin is
equal parts determined ignorance, furious judgment, and quiet compassion, and
Taylor-Johnson’s Vronsky is every bit the smoldering conquistador. The film also features Matthew Macfadyen, the
sublime Kelly Macdonald, Ruth Wilson (a former Jane Eyre,) Michelle Dockery
from Downton Abbey, Emily Watson,
Emerald Fennell from Call the Midwife,
former Weasley sibling Domhall Gleeson, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bit role
from Luke Newberry (Kieren from In the
Flesh.)
Warnings
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