Review of Anna Karenina (2012) by Greatmartin — 03 Dec 2012

The costumes by Jacqueline Durran are sumptuous , the production design by Sarah Greenwood head spinning and the original music by Dario Marianelli is at times as frantic as the editing is and at other times very operatic. The camera loves Keira Knightley, as Anna Karenina, just as much as Keira Knightley loves the camera. Jude Law, as her cuckolded husband, gives the best performance in the film and 20 years ago would have played her lover, Vronsky, bringing more fire, looks and chemistry to the role than does Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Whether it is the concept of the screenplay by the world famous playwright Tom Stoppard and/or the director Joe Wright, based on the even more famous novel by Leo Tolstoy, the novelty of staging it as a play, using every nook and cranny of a theatre, very quickly falls flat and takes you out of the story just as Wright goes outside the theatre too many times. At times it seems like an opera, operetta or musical theatre without songs being sung. At times you find yourself counting the costume changes by Anna and Vronsky trying to see who accomplishes the most and there are a lot. In some scenes costume changes are stylistic which is intriguing at first but then, sadly, like the movie, becomes boring.