Review of Anna Karenina (2012) by Sreedhar K — 31 Mar 2013

"The book was so much better'! We all know that feeling, and we also know how much of an understatement such reactions would be when we talk about attempts at rendering great epics through the medium of cinema. But, British director Joe Wright's attempt at Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' serves as yet another supplication to be not so lost in such scholastic scrutiny to not enjoy a decent adaption of a classic tale.

Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina was written during 1873-1877 and is still regarded as the gold standard in realistic fiction, based as it was on real people, including episodes from Tolstoy's life itself, of Moscow and St. Petersburg of imperial Russia. His gift for writing and his keen study of human life together make for a vivid portrait on a rather large canvas through the story of Anna. Yet, Tolstoy's work, which he wrote in his 50's and was quoted as saying 'I put everything into it, nothing was left over', does leave much to the reader to fill in the blanks rather than offer easy answers by way of detailed character development and/or explanations for dilemmas. No stereotypes here. Occasionally, the saintly/careful do evoke dread and the evil/reckless some pity.The work can reveal something new and striking each time you revisit it.

So, no wonder that Joe & team felt compelled/inspired to go at it one more time. By the way, Anna Karenina was made into a movie some 14+ times (not to mention the countless versions that use the storyline for extended adaptations), with equal number of TV, play, and broadway versions. Here they tried to use a stage play metaphor to tell the story (Oscar winner Tom Stoppard, of Shakepeare in Love, wrote the script), but somehow never managed to fully exploit it other than for shortcuts (to show snow-clad toy trains). When the script looks under developed, we have to remind ourselves that the original meant it to be such. It is not of the scale of David Lean's 1965 sweeping adaptation, another understatement, of Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago. A nice connection between British directors and Russian writers there, huh!

Keira Knightley is often much criticized for her acting, but she does look the part quite admirably here (not very objective coming from a fan). So does Jude Law. Very OK overall indeed, and definitely a respectable attempt at taking us back to classic works of art. It won an Oscar for costumes this year, and was nominated for score, cinematography, and production design.