Anna Karenina (2012)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Joe Wright's energetic adaptation of Tolstoy's classic romance is a bold, visually stylized work -- for both better and worse.
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Cast
as Anna Karenina
as Karenin
as Vronsky
as Oblonsky
as Levin
as Kitty
as Dolly
as Princess Betsy Tverskoy
as Countess Vronsky
as Countess Lydia Ivanovna
as Matvey
as Grisha Oblonsky
as Lili Oblonsky
as Masha Oblonsky
as Tanya Oblonsky
as Vasya Oblonsky
as Mlle. Roland
as Annushka
as Aruhan
as Korney
as Mikhail Slyudin
as Serozha
as Vasily Lukich
as Doorkeeper
as Elderly Waiter
as Prince Shcherbatsky
as Princess Shcherbatsky
as Countess Nordston
as Burisov
as Nikolai
as Masha
as Guards Officer
as Stationmaster
as Austrian Princess
as Wheel Tapper
as Oblonsky's Servant
as Agafia
as Kitchen Maid
as Boris
as Korsunsky
as Kapitonich
as Petritsky
as Baroness
as Tuskevitch
as Colonel
as Princess Myagkaya
as Princess Merkalova
as Anna's Friend
as Yashvin
as Alexander Vronsky
as Makhotin
as Princess Sorokina
as Princess Sorokina Senior
as Varya
as Prince Tverskoy
as Theodore
as Young Peasant
as Stremov
as Anna's Doctor
as Princess Betsy's Footman
as Shopkeeper
as Opera House Husband
as Opera House Wife
as Opera House Manager
as Piano Prodigy
as Baby Anya
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Critic Reviews for Anna Karenina
All Critics (179) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (113) | Rotten (66) | DVD (2)
So can we somehow make a bargain with the film world: no more Anna Kareninas? You're making idiots of yourselves.
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.
In this adaptation, director Joe Wright, plus screenwriter Tom Stoppard, are determined to tame the untameable. And they do.
"Anna Karenina," lush as it is, fails to strike a fully human chord.
The very picture of noble failure, it's a bright red heart without a beat.
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.
Audience Reviews for Anna Karenina
A gigantic novel impressively adapted to a little over two hours of sumptuous experience - the production design is splendid -, with the action brilliantly placed on a theater stage representing society and a powerful story that benefits from amazing performances.
Super Reviewer
Two problems with this movie: (1) the source material is deadly boring and (2) Keira Knightley. She's just not the elegantly tragic figure that the central role needs to generate an audience's empathy. On the bright side, I really liked the whole "stage thing" that the director threw in to throw an element of movement in a storyline that mostly treads water. (yawn)
Super Reviewer
Setting this sprawling, aristocratic tale of social and literal suicide on a stage is at first gimmicky, later mindfucky, and on the whole, an interesting choice with uneven but admirable execution. I especially liked the backstage/wings/galleys used as the seedier parts of Moscow/St. Petersburg and the breaking of the opera house's fourth wall during the disastrous horse race. Keira Knightley is fine; I have come to not hate her anymore. Alicia Vikander sparkles as the spoiled and naive Kitty. Domhnall Gleeson is romantic but severe as the smitten Levin. Blond pretty-boy Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) sticks out like a sore thumb as Vronsky, the object of Anna's affections. Movie-mate, Jim Hunter, suggested that in keeping with the magical realism of the set design concept, Jude Law should have played both Aleksei, the cuckolded husband, and the hapless "other man." That would have been bomb-diggedy. In terms of story, I'm disappointed that this version of Anna Karenina is so visually vanguard but still entrenched in the tradition of representing Anna as merely an adulterer, then hot/crazy harpy, then cautionary tale.
Super Reviewer
Anna Karenina Quotes
| Aleksei Karenin: | Sin has a price, you can be sure of that! |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Anna Karenina: | I'd die for my son. But I can't live for him like this. |
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