Anna Karenina (2012) ☆ 1/2

This is my first brush with Leo Tolstoy’s famous story; I have never read the book, nor seen any of the numerous earlier versions, many of which are considered to be classics.  What a mistake I made to see this one first.  It is ruined, in my view, by director Joe Wright’s decision to stage much of the action in a playhouse, on stage, mixing actual settings with stage bound transitions and impressionistic settings. This decision undercuts its dramatic foundation, causing viewers to wonder just what is real, or intended to be perceived as real, and what is illusion.  Is everything an illusion?  If so, what a stupid way to present a fictional story.

Joe Wright made the wonderful Pride and Prejudice several years ago, and works again with Keira Knightley, whose career is filled with portrayals of classic women of literature such as this.  Knightley is good, but the role is so shallow, so often filmed as if she were on the way to a fashion shoot, that she wallows in the movie’s excess. The set direction and cinematography are very impressive, and even the staging occasionally overcomes the ridiculousness of the stage bound setting.  I understand that this is a different take on a classic story; Wright was determined not to just make another pretty tragedy.  But the manner in which this unfolds is irritating in an ever-increasing crescendo of pomposity.  Good scenes are bookended by diverting transitions; characterization is drowned by technique calling attention to itself.  What a good film could have resulted had Wright played it straight; this version is a half-baked travesty.  ☆ 1/2.  26 December 2012.

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