Product Description
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Anna Karenina is accled director Joe Wright’s bold,
theatrical new vision of the epic story of love, stirringly
adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s great novel by Academy Award winner
Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love). The film marks the third
collaboration of the director with Academy Award-nominated
actress Keira Knightley and Academy Award-nominated producers Tim
Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Paul Webster, following their
award-winning box office successes Pride & Prejudice and
Atonement. The timeless story powerfully explores the capacity
for love that surges through the human heart, while illuminating
the lavish society that was imperial Russia.
The year is 1874. Vibrant and beautiful, Anna Karenina (Keira
Knightley) has what any of her contemporaries would aspire to:
she is the wife of Karenin (Jude Law), a high-ranking government
official to whom she has borne a son, and her social standing in
St. Petersburg could cely be higher. She journeys to Moscow
after a letter from her philandering brother Oblonsky (Matthew
Macfadyen) arrives, asking for Anna to come and help save his
marriage to Dolly (Kelly Macdonald). En route, Anna makes the
acquaintance of Countess Vronsky (Olivia Williams), who is then
met at the train station by her son, the dashing cavalry officer
Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). When Anna is introduced to
Vronsky, there is a mutual spark of instant attraction that
cannot--and will not--be ignored.
Digital Copy Information:
* Digital Copy expires February 4, 2015
* UV Copy expires February 4, 2015
Review
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Talk about setting yourself a tough task. Director Joe Wright,
off the back of accl for earlier films such as Hanna and
Atonement, decided to plump for an adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna
Karenina. Adapted, with some wise excisions, by Tom Stoppard, the
story is set in 1874, and centres on the title character, played
by Keira Knightley. Anna is in a respectable marriage, and yet
succumbs to temptation when she embarks on an affair, risking her
social standing as she does so. Also, there's the small matter of
her brother, played by Matthew Macfayden, who has marital
infidelities of his own on his mind.
Wright decides to juggle and frame this potentially complex
narrative by use of theatre. Literally, as it happens, as his
take on Anna Karenina uses the location of a theatre extensively
and creatively to tell its tale. It doesn't always work, but it
does usually engage, and the production design is simply
exquisite.
There's no shortage of quality performances here too, with
Knightley strong in the lead role, and Jude Law excellent as her
husband. Perhaps the real star here though is the director
himself. Anna Karenina may not always fully gel, but it's a
fascinating, engaging adaptation of a rarely-tackled text.
Wright's audio commentary is well worth a listen, too... --Jon
Foster
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By filming Leo Tolstoy's timeless novel as a series of theater
pieces that play out across stages and catwalks, Joe Wright
extracts Anna Karenina from the dusty pages of history. In her
third collaboration with the filmmaker, Keira Knightley portrays
the St. Petersburg aristocrat as a woman who loves her son,
Sergei, more than her husband, Alexei Karenin (Jude Law). On a
trip to Moscow, she meets Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson),
whose Snidely Whiplash mustache spells trouble, even as his
sky-blue eyes prove impossible to resist. Wright contrasts their
passionate union with the less cataclysmic concerns of Anna's
sister-in-law, Dolly (Boardwalk Empire's Kelly Macdonald), whose
capacity for forgiveness puts Alexei to shame, and Levin (Harry
Potter's Domhnall Gleeson), who never gives up on Dolly's sister,
Kitty (Alicia Vikander), even after she rejects him in hopes of a
more glamorous future. When the affair between Anna and Vronsky
becomes public, Tolstoy's antiheroine risks losing everything,
but as readers know: she just can't help herself. Though
Shakespeare in Love screenwriter Tom Stoppard ties together a
colorful galaxy of characters who orbit around the photogenic
central couple, the secondary performers provide the more deeply
grounded performances, particularly Law and Gleeson. And for all
the stylized, Douglas Sirk-inspired melodrama, Knightley's Pride
& Prejudice costar, Matthew Macfadyen, who plays Dolly's wayward
husband, lightens the mood whenever he utters one of his clever
quips. If it isn't completely successful, Wright's reinvention is
frequently quite dazzling--much like the genuine Chanel diamonds
that illuminate Knightley's porcelain complexion. --Kathleen C.
Fennessy