Anna Karenina (2012)

All Critics (176) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (113) | Rotten (65) | DVD (2)

It's a half-success -- a baldly conceptual response to the Leo Tolstoy novel, with a heavy theatrical framework placed around the narrative of girl meets boy, followed by girl meets train.

November 30, 2012 Full Review

Michael Phillips

Chicago Tribune

Top Critic

In this adaptation, director Joe Wright, plus screenwriter Tom Stoppard, are determined to tame the untameable. And they do.

November 30, 2012 Full Review

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

"Anna Karenina," lush as it is, fails to strike a fully human chord.

November 30, 2012 Full Review

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

The very picture of noble failure, it's a bright red heart without a beat.

November 29, 2012 Full Review

Peter Howell

Toronto Star

Top Critic

The metaphorical force of this conceit-insisting on the artifice of the social world that frowns on rapture-is not hard to grasp, but its frailty unsettles some of the actors.

November 26, 2012 Full Review

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

Top Critic

Thank goodness for Domhnall Gleeson's gentle turn as Oblonsky's friend Levin. The ginger-haired landowner is the movie's warmest figure.

November 21, 2012 Full Review

Lisa Kennedy

Denver Post

Top Critic

Maybe Wright and Stoppard have not given us a great Anna Karenina. .. this movie is too derivative and flashy for that, but they have connected the romantic and philosophical poles...The heart wants what it wants, and will destroy itself to have it.

April 27, 2013 Full Review

Philip Martin

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The film does not do even minimal justice to the themes informing the tragedy.

March 22, 2013 Full Review

Dan Jardine

Cinemania

A whirlwind affair composed of dazzling set pieces and a driving narrative.

March 21, 2013 Full Review

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

Tolstoy's novel rendered in exquisite Faberge egg form.

March 4, 2013 Full Review

Catherine Bray

Film4

While there are suitably glorious elements, there's also a frankly bizarre and much-debated aspect added by playwright Tom Stoppard, so that the whole thing is full of 'Brechtian Alienation Devices' and narrative-splintering tricks.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

David 'Mad Dog' Bradley

Rip It Up

It's easy to conclude that this Anna Karenina is a superficial portrait of a superficial society, but that would be to dismiss how emotionally powerful it is in key moments.

February 26, 2013 Full Review

Rima Sabina Aouf

Concrete Playground

There have been countless film and tv versions of Russian author Leo Tolstoy's classic high society love story. But none have been captured so beautifully and boldly as this Anna Karenina.

February 21, 2013 Full Review

Brian Henry Martin

UTV

a visually unique story world, bold and beautiful, and dramatically fused with passion. Yet it's also a limited space that remains prisoner to its self-conscious theatrical structures.

February 20, 2013 Full Review

Simon Weaving

Screenwize

The meandering Russian tale of forbidden aristocratic love - Knightley's character spurns her stiff, high-ranking husband, played by Jude Law for military man Aaron Taylor-Johnson - fails to ignite.

February 18, 2013 Full Review

Phil Villarreal

OK! Magazine

A sumptuous cinematic feast!

February 17, 2013 Full Review

Kam Williams

NewsBlaze

Leo Tolstoy's classic tale of doomed romance and the emotionally stifling lives of Russian aristocrats gets an ornate, inert reworking...the congested setting makes much of the film look like a blur of costumes and set dressing.

February 15, 2013 Full Review

Jim Schembri

3AW

Between the screenplay by playwright Tom Stoppard and the direction of Joe Wright, Anna Karenina is a stylistically fascinating film.

February 15, 2013 Full Review

Tim Martain

The Mercury

Trying to one-up Tolstoy was always going to be a bad idea, though I wouldn't object to seeing a Bond movie, or Les Miserables, staged in the same way.

February 14, 2013 Full Review

Jake Wilson

The Age (Australia)

Joe Wright uses the theatre and has the actors taking part in a stage production which then moves out into the real world. I think that's done beautifully.

February 14, 2013 Full Review

David Stratton

At the Movies (Australia)

Well, Joe Wright has done it. His ANNA KARENINA is a triumph.

February 14, 2013 Full Review

Margaret Pomeranz

At the Movies (Australia)

Wright's staged version tries desperately to gain one's attention (which it does) and engage one's affection (which it doesn't).

February 10, 2013 Full Review

Ed Gibbs

The Sun Herald

Wright's edgy, bravura approach actually enhances the moral themes and the social context, illuminating the story in a fresh, contemporary light. This is cinema

February 8, 2013 Full Review

Andrew L. Urban

Urban Cinefile

Wright's vision in re-imagining this classic tale is conceptually brilliant, with a perpetual sense of motion... a visual and emotional statement

February 8, 2013 Full Review

Louise Keller

Urban Cinefile

Like its central character, this is beautiful and brave even if it fails to fully realise its potential.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Amber Wilkinson

Eye for Film

Anna Karenina plays like the ultimate CliffsNotes, which is both testament to Stoppard's exceptional adaptation and abridgement of Tolstoy's novel and acknowledgment of the film's somewhat superficial center.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Mark Pfeiffer

Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

• 1. Nikolai: That's right. The day is coming. I gave up my birthright for it. You're on the wrong side of history. Not because privilege is immoral but because it's irrational.
  – Submitted by Pete S (5 months ago)
• 1. Nikolai: That's right. The day is coming. I gave up my birthright for it. You?re on the wrong side of history. Not because privilege is immoral but because it's irrational.
  – Submitted by Pete S (5 months ago)
• 1. Anna Karenina: I'd die for my son. But I can't live for him like this.
  – Submitted by Ashley N (5 months ago)
• 1. Anna Karenina: This must stop. If you have any thought for me you must give me back my peace.
  – Submitted by Chris P (6 months ago)
• 1. Aleksei Karenin: I love you!
  2. Anna Karenina: Why?
  3. Aleksei Karenin: You cant ask why, about love.
  – Submitted by Sofia A (8 months ago)