Anna Karenina starts off well enough; the novel begins by plunging you straight into the action and the film's director, Joe Wright, follows suit. The film takes a sudden theatrical turn and its numerous locations are set up like a stage where the characters move effortlessly between different scenes. This works wonderfully in the earlier scenes, but as the story advances, insight into the characters' actions becomes crucial and Wright's preoccupation with Kiera Knightly's costumes does not cut it. Seen by many as Russia's answer to the European novel, Tolstoy's classic covers many topics, but we will assume familiarity with the famous plot and tell you that for the purposes of this film, it can be summed up as being about Anna and Vronsky's affair which scandalises Russian high-society and ends in tragedy. In many ways, Wright faces a herculean task; the book is at least 800 pages of 19th-century realism. But Wright was never expected to adhere completely to the text and adapt it word-for-word. Many of the most celebrated literary adaptations into film have taken liberties with the original text. After all, adapting a novel into moving images inevitably limits the possibility of a faithful transition, so why bother? Wright makes the right call by being bold in his use of theatricals in the film and his interesting take on 19th-century Russia. Surprisingly, the minor characters are cast better than the two major characters, Anna and Vronsky, but they are ephemeral and not given nearly enough screen time. The film reduces Levin's spiritual awakening and his relationship with Kitty, invaluable to book, an almost to a minor plot line. Kiera Knightly is unconvincing as Karenina and fails to garner the same compassion the original character instills. Vronsky is just as annoying in the film but this is no more because of the director's capable hands than his poor casting of Aaron Johnson as Vronsky. Anna's tragedy is presented as if it were the result of petty jealousy, hardly surprising for a film that focuses on the romantic aspect of a much richer book. The full scope of Anna's life and thoughts, presented with extraordinary clarity in the book, are skipped or rushed through and we end up with a caricature of the original character. If it were not enough that Knightly pronounces half her words as if she were chewing on the book itself, her performance is strained and difficult to believe. The film fails when it comes to an essential part of the book's success, characterisation, something Tolstoy was famously good at. Without humanising its main characters and by rushing the more convincing secondary ones, the film will not strike a chord with most audiences, but we can all agree that it at least looks stunning in doing so.
