(UK, 130 min.)
Dir. Joe Wright, Writ. Tom Stoppard
Starring: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew MacFadyen, Kelly MacDonald, Olivia Williams, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Michelle Dockery, Ruth Wilson, Emily Watson.
Anna Karenina is a
must-see film for anyone with a serious interest in the art of adaptation. It’s
a must-see for any serious film buff, really, because this new film by director
Joe Wright (Atonement) is very electrifying
stuff. Anna Karenina is a bold new
take on the classic novel by Leo Tolstoy thanks primarily to the skillful
penning by scribe Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare
in Love) and the spot-on casting of Wright’s muse Keira Knightley in the
title role. Everyone in the production deserves strong kudos, though, because Anna Karenina is one of the most
exciting films to hit the screen in some time.
Oblonsky’s affair takes place mostly behind the scenes of
the stage, with the public life of the characters playing out before the audience
and the private indiscretions of the characters taking place within the wings.
(The same goes for the matter of Levin’s ailing brother, who lies sick in a
brothel.) There is also an audience in Anna
Karenina. They’re always watching. Sometimes they have fans, and sometimes
they have opera glasses, but they’re always watching, watching, watching. The
audience frequently includes members of the principal cast, too, to emphasize
the sense of suffocation that one feels in these highly scrutinized roles.
Meanwhile, Stepan’s sister, Anna Karenina, prepares for her
role as marriage councillor and she reads a letter from her brother who pleads
that she intoxicate Dolly with her womanly virtue and good sense. A servant
dresses Anna as she read the letter nonchalantly, and the scene puts at its
centre just one of the exquisite costumes by Jacqueline Durran that make Anna Karenina such a gorgeous, ravishing
drama.
The first act of the film serves more as an opening number
than as an inciting event. Particularly during one scene in which Levin
(Domhnall Gleeson) calls upon Oblonsky in his place of work does the film adopt
the tone and tempo of a Broadway musical. The human drones who complete the
paperwork at Oblonsky’s office offer a farcical send-up to the bore of bureaucracy
while Oblonsky does a funny little jig whilst he sheds his working clothes and
dons his top hat and tails. It’s clear who benefits from the work and who doesn’t.
The best drama of Anna
Karenina comes in the tragedy that Anna must play in her affair with Count
Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Anna first meets Vronsky while en route to
console Dolly. Anna meets Vronsky’s mother (a strong Olivia Williams) on the
train. Anna catches Vronsky’s eye when the trains arrives in the station and he
goes to meet his mother and Anna her brother. They make a good first impression
on one another and keep each other in mind until their next dance, which comes
at the ball.
Vronsky attends
the ball as the object of affection of Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya (Alicia
Vikander), who rejects Levin’s proposal for marriage because she hopes that
Vronsky will pop the question during the ball. Kitty thinks Vronsky a better
match since he’s better looking and more well off in terms of social standing.
At the ball, however, Vronsky’s baby face has eyes for Anna and Anna alone. Everyone’s
eyes are on someone at these haughty functions, for the characters are always
performing. The dance between Anna and Vronsky is a showstopping number that
has the audience in awe, not out of admiration for Anna’s ability to bust a
move, but out of scorn at her obvious indiscretion at appearing so gooey-eyed
with a man other than her husband.
Anna’s husband, Alexey (which also happens to be the given
name of her lover Vronsky), is a conservative and well-respected politician. Alexey
Karenin is played by Jude Law, whose purposely stuffy performance emphasizes
the patriarchal bent of 1800s Russia. There is no love between Anna and her
husband. Their marriage is a play put on for prying eyes. The love between Anna
and Vronsky, on the other hand, is genuinely passionate, but it cannot be
fulfilled due to the restrictions placed on a woman in Anna’s “position.” The
film smartly uses the parallel love story between Levin and Kitty to show how
love that is good, honest, and true can be fulfilled with joy and warmth when
society opens itself and embraces a good pairing. However, as one character
ominously states, “Romantic love will be the last illusion of the old order.”
Hence, the two stories of Anna/Vronsky (tragic) versus Levin/Kitty (joyous)
offer a vision with hope for the future, since the younger generation seems
ready to prosper.
The ensemble of Anna
Karenina is excellent overall. Law is quite good as Karenin, and
Taylor-Johnson performs well as Vronsky by giving a meekish reading of the
character that shows just how much of a pathetic little shit Vronsky is. The
scene-stealer of the supporting players, however, is easily Matthew MacFadyen
as Oblonsky, who seems to have the most fun with the theatrical flair of the
film. (He even grew his own comical mustache.) Keira Knightley gives an
especially fine performance as Tolstoy’s tragic figure. Knightley is at the top
of her game in Anna Karenina. She pushes
herself to new bounds and shows the audience just how much her corset can
stretch, particularly during Anna’s descent into depression/madness in the
final act. Knightley is such a good fit for the part that Tolstoy couldn’t have
picked a better Anna himself.
Anna Karenina is
especially exhilarating because it offers a wholly unique rendering of the
novel. (On the Road, please start
taking notes.) Fidelity critics might suggest that Tolstoy is rolling in his
grave since many of the eight-hundred-odd pages of his prose have been snipped in
search of a film equivalent; however, instead of re-writing the novel and facing
the painstaking task of condensing an epic work that is dense in both its
narrative and thematic scopes, Stoppard’s adaptation of Anna Karenina plays more like an intellectual reading of the novel.
Tolstoy must surely be smiling since this film enjoys a conversation with his
novel, as it observes and comments upon all of the richest qualities on Anna Karenina.
The conceit might have proved fatal in the hands of a lesser
director, but Joe Wright executes it remarkably. The film has just the right
tone and timing. All the little movements of the audience/ensemble fill up the
atmosphere with whizzing fans and gossipy chatter. Likewise, the film is
faultless from both a technical and an artistic point of view. The score by
Dario Marianelli is elegant and beautiful. Wright succeeds very well with Marianelli,
and most so in his reteaming with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, who did that
stunning Dunkirk shot in Atonement
and shows off even more here.
This version of Anna
Karenina is an epic piece of literary cinema in all its finest form. This film
will be reviewed, discussed, and studied by future fans of the medium. Anna Karenina is fresh and new, and
very, very exciting. It’s a game-changer for the art of adaptation.
