Reviewed By: Katey Rich
The film's biggest innovation is to set the entire story within a decaying old theater, a very literal translation of the prying eyes and strict rules of late 19th century Russian high society, where the upper class was so pretentious they spoke French amongst themselves. Wright uses the theater to stage all kinds of improbable scenes-- a horse race, an intimate bedroom encounter-- and occasionally lets us witness the stunning set changes, a choreography of actors and camera that rivals all the celebrated long takes in Wright's previous films. Characters sit among the footlights when they want to be alone, chatter up in the opera boxes to gossip-- but they are always trapped in this dilapidated theater, with no awareness that the world might change around them.
The one exception to this is Levin (Domnhall Gleeson), a farmer who only begrudgingly visits high society but who falls hard for a young girl (Alicia Vikander) who initially rejects him. Early on Levin pushes open the back door of the stage to walk into a snowy field, a simple but stunning photography trick that sets up a fascinating contrast between "real" and artificial spaces (in a film where, of course, everything is fictional). As Anna (Knightley) begins her torturous affair with the young, caddish Vronsky (Aaron Taylor Johnson) they frolic among real hedges and in fields of flowers, but they inexorably return to the theater, where gossips make their lives impossible. And even when Anna visits the frigid bedroom she shares with her stern husband (a marvelous Jude Law), the bedchamber can open up to the wings of the stage without warning. Love-- for a wife or husband, for a child, for an illicit affair-- is real in this story; it's the world itself that can constantly shift and redefine everything.
Tom Stoppard's fluid, very streamlined adaptation makes Anna Karenina a series of love stories, with the politics left to the fringes for curious viewers. The focus on Levin and Kitty's slow courtship contrasts beautifully with Anna and Vronsky's fevered affair, and though the martial fracture between Oblonsky and Dolly is one of the film's quieter notes, they're played so beautifully by Matthew MacFadyen and Kelly MacDonald that they feel essential as well. Wright is famous for working with the same technical team on every film, and all the elements of production here-- from Dario Marianelli's propulsive score to Jacqueline Durran's bravura costumes to Seamus McGarvey's sharp cinematography-- synch up so perfectly that the movie sweeps you along like the train on one of Anna's immense dresses. Anna Karenina is a massive, boldly imagined work, the rare novel adaptation that's purely, thrillingly cinematic.
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