Anna Karenina

It was good... just good.

It was a very beautiful movie. The story was moving. I tried the read the book a long time ago, but the length completely discouraged me. So now I know how the story went. It was a good story. I was also a bit turned off by the stage...thing they had going on in the movie. It was weird. I get that they were trying to be creative, but I think the movie would have been better without it.

Ridiculous Adaptation

It would serve you better to see the Vivien Leigh movie then this ridiculous adaptation. Extremely strange camera angles. Setting the movie around a theater was wierd and hard to understand. Historically inaccurate. Bizarre dance scene with wierd hand movements. Why can't directors and writers just adapt a book and stop all the ridiculous innovations to make it something new. If you are going to remake a classic keep it the same. Extremely poor just like Hyde Park on Hudson and Hitchcock. I think the people in Hollywood think the people who watch movies have never read any books or know anything about history. But, it's certain they certainly don't. Ann Hornaday's review is total joke just like herself. Extremely unintelligent!

When is the train coming?

Shallow and theatrical, different only to be different, and lacking in any emotional connection. Count Vronsky is terribly miscast. Really an injustice to the book..

One of the few insightful reviews of Anna

Most of the reviewers either have never been in love, or know nothing of existential bliss. Thank you, Ann, for your superb review.

Brilliant and Innovative.

Hollywood has made many a dollar turning serious literature into vapid melodrama, but that's not the case with this production of Anna Karenina. Brilliantly choreographed with breathtaking cinematography, we see Karenina through the jaded eyes Tolstoy intended. Filmed as a theater-production-within-a-movie, this film distills the novel's essence. We see the Russian Aristocracy in the final decades of its decline, where ennui, vapid social norms and opulent trappings were indeed more theatrical than real. In contrast, Levin's scenes are sot more realistically. This is an unapologetic art film, which will not appeal to all, but if you love the real Tolstoy, see this...

Silly

Be forewarned, this is not a serious retelling of a dramatic story. It is comic opera, as if Fellini tried to be funny by having movable sets and musicians and dancers miming music and dance for no apparent reason in the middle of scenes. It is so distracting and nonsensical.

Haunting, mysterious Anna

I was afraid I would hate this movie, but I loved it. The stage device contained and made manageable the vast story. The blocking and choreography were mesmerizing, especially the intricate dances between aristocrats and servants. Keira Knightly's performance was nuanced and true, but Jude Law stole the show with his exquisite Karenin.

When is the train arriving?

You have to read the review of this movie in today's (Nov.21) Houston Chronicle. It's one of the funniest reviews I've read and probably a lot more accurate than the one in WAPO.

"Similarly Vibrant"?

NOTE: I have not seen this movie, but I was forced to give it a rating to be able to submit my comment. Which is: I'm afraid I will have to take what Ms. Hornaday says about it with a grain of salt, since she says this adaptation is like the "similarly vibrant" adaptation Wright did of "Pride and Prejudice." Ugh. That adaptation was anything but vibrant and did not remotely capture the essence of that remarkable work. At all. I think I'll just reread Tolstoy's version of "Anna" instead.