Anna Karenina (2012)
Storyline
Trapped in a loveless marriage, aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.
Directors
Cast
Alexandra Roach, Pip Torrens, Jude Law, Matthew Macfadyen, Emily Watson, Arthur Nightingale, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Jamie Beamish, Olivia Williams, Michelle Dockery, Holliday Grainger, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Shirley Henderson, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Macdonald, Luke Newberry, Keira Knightley, Eros Vlahos, Antony Byrne, Steve Evets, Raphaël Personnaz, Michael Shaeffer, Susanne Lothar, David Wilmot, Duncan Wisbey, Cara Delevingne, Max Bennett, Nick Holder, Ruth Wilson, Alicia Vikander, Emerald Fennell, Hera Hilmar, Bill Skarsgård, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Kenneth Collard, Thomas Howes, Oskar McNamara, Aruhan Galieva, Guro Nagelhus Schia, Kyle Soller, Buffy Davis, Marine Battier, Eric MacLennan, Bryan Hands, Sam Cox, Jude Monk McGowan, Giles King, Theo Morrissey, Cecily Morrissey, Freya Galpin, Octavia Morrissey, Beatrice Morrissey, Bodil Blain, John Bradley, Vicky McClure, Inga Leps, Carl Grose, Joseph Macnab, Gala Wesson, Sarine Sofair, Conor McCarry, Martin Wimbush, James Northcote
Trailer
Reviews
83
Both fascinatingly theatrical and thrillingly cinematic, a picture that's lingered on our minds more than we expected.
80
Empire
If it doesn't ultimately engage your heart as it might, Anna Karenina is period drama at its most exciting, intoxicating and modern. Spellbinding.
80
Knightley embodies Anna as a girlish woman who has never felt erotic love; once smitten, she is raised to heavenly ecstasy before tumbling into the abyss of shame. It's a nervy performance, acutely attuned to the volcanic changes a naive creature must enjoy and endure on her first leap into mad passion. She helps make Anna Karenina an operatic romance worth singing about.
75
The results are generally refreshing. Much of the film takes place inside a theatre, as if to suggest the shenanigans of the Saint Petersburg aristocracy were a form of public entertainment.
70
Variety
Setting most of the action in a mocked-up theater emphasizes the performance aspects of the characters' behavior, a strategy enhanced by lead thesp Keira Knightley's willingness to let her neurotic Anna appear less sympathetic than in previous incarnations.
