My "Anna Karenina" Headache

Joe Wright, the director of "Atonement" and "Hannah," has proven to be a reliable talent, especially with period films. Tom Stoppard is a playwright of rare esteem, who co-authored "Shakespeare in Love" among other classics. And then there's Keira Knightley, whose acting chops I've occasionally found reason to question, but she's delivered some good performances, including the title role of "The Duchess," which was about an adulterous noblewoman going against the social rules of her day and age. I'm not sure which of these three is to blame for the unfortunate state of the latest cinematic adaptation of "Anna Karenina," its director, its writer, or its leading lady. I suspect all three are partially responsible.

The first hour of the film is fine, if a little frantic. For those of you who don't remember your Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, played by Knightley, is married to Count Alexei Karenin (Jude Law), a rising figure in the Russian government with whom she has a young son. Anna travels to Moscow to help smooth over the aftermath of an affair involving Anna's brother Stiva (Matthew Macfadyen) and his wife Dolly (Kelly Macdonald). During Anna's visit, Dolly's younger sister Kitty (Alicia Vikander) rejects the affections of one suitor, Konstantin Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), in favor of the dashing cavalry officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Unfortunately for Kitty, Vronsky and Anna become involved in a love affair that ultimately results in Anna's downfall in Russian society. Running parallel is the story of Levin's continued courtship of Kitty and his evolving understanding of his place in Russia's future.

"Anna Karenina" has extremely ambitious visuals. Much of the main action plays out on a literal stage, with shifting backdrops and props denoting changes in location. A character may ascend into the catwalks above the curtain, dressed to look like the docks, or drop beneath the stage into the trap room, which stands in for the slums. In one long take, we watch as an accounting office is transformed into a restaurant, the extras swapping visors for waiters' uniforms, dancing into position as the scenery changes. Musicians briefly invade the set before disappearing backstage again. It's all very beautifully choreographed, and the theater being a metaphor for Russian society is an apt one, but it's a conceit that gets tired very quickly. Fortunately, whenever the action moves away from the cities, Wright sets his scenes in the real world, with an emphasis on nature and farming life.

Now all the stagecraft and spectacle is fun up to a point, and I found that the introductory scenes played well. The trouble comes when Anna and Count Vronsky become involved, and their romance becomes the driving force of the rest of the film. This is where everything falls apart. Keira Knightley is clearly doing her best, and Anna Karenina was always a difficult character, but I don't think I've ever seen a more unsympathetic take on the tragic heroine. She gets no help from Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who comes off as pale and weaselly more than anything else. Jude Law fares much better as the wronged party, and creates some real tension when he and Anna clash. However, Knightley ends up alone onscreen for too many endless scenes, and it's simply too much for her. I don't think she does a bad job, but there's something terribly off-putting about her work in this film. At several points she struck me as miscast, a little too stiff to convey the consuming passion that drives Anna Karenina to ignore all instincts of self-preservation.

Then again, it doesn't help that Anna's descent is severely truncated, and her emotional state is too often unclear. Stoppard's script does a fine job with Karenin's arc and Levin's arc, but when it comes to Anna, it falls short. There's not enough time spent establishing her reasons for jealousy and doubt, and her later actions appear mercurial and mean-spirited. I understand the reason for shortening this section, because it would have been a long slog the way Wright presented these events. All that spectacular stagecraft mostly disappears in the last act, where it could have been a real help to liven things up. I was disappointed when I realized that Wright wasn't going to extend the theater metaphor to Anna's isolation and madness, choosing instead to play things completely straight, and falling victim to the tedium he was trying so hard to avoid. Instead of building to the famous climax, the movie just sort of meanders there. Maybe if Wright had stronger lead actors this approach wouldn't have seemed so underwhelming, but Knightley and Taylor-Johnson needed all the help they could get.

The rest of the cast boasts some formidable talents. Olivia Williams, Emily Mortimer, and Ruth Wilson appear in smaller roles. Alicia Vikander is a relative newcomer, but proves herself to be someone worth keeping an eye on. Jude Law gives the best performance, but I think my favorite is Matthew Macfadyen as the jovial Stiva, a valuable source of comic relief whenever he appears. Some may point to the inclusion of the Levin section as being too much of a distraction from the main story, but Domhnall Gleeson is very good at being depressed without being dull, and I ultimately found his subplot far more satisfying than watching Anna and Vronsky's labored love affair. Even cutting out all the poiltics and the religion, the filmmakers managed to get Levin right.

So it continues to confound me how they managed to get Anna Karenina so very wrong.
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