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Emotional depth gets lost in Joe Wright’s adaptation of Anna Karenina, but it sure is beautiful to stare at. Leo Tolstoy’s novel of familial disintegration and the romance that leads to its main character’s eventual destruction is no stranger to film, so you need a new hook to make your version standout. I’m not sure the hook for this one was the right choice.
Tom Stoppard’s screenplay has designed Anna Karenina as taking place within a large proscenium theater with sets that collapse or move to reveal the next section. It’s a neat trick to be sure, but one that calls to much attention towards itself as the film goes on and saps the power away from the drama unfolding. It becomes a distracting exercise in watching actors trying not to fuck up their marks while masking that interior panic. What works on an actual stage production does not always translate to a filmed one.
Sometimes these moments are beyond gorgeous tableaus, but they often exemplify Wright’s limitations as a director. His mind is always working overtime to come up with visual ideas, but there’s often very little “why” behind these ideas as they exist merely to titillate. For every blessed quiet moment there’s five more of strum und drang for the sake of it. Occasionally these flashier moments work well, like a horse race edited to the frantic beating of Anna’s fan, but more often they needlessly call attention away from the already complex interpersonal geometry of the main players and onto the geometric patterns of the production.
There’s also the little matter of treating the setting as a stage leading to an uneven quality to the film’s performances. Some actors go for the more natural route that’s typical of film, a sublime Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander, while others go for more arch, mannered performances that would work better on a stage, Ruth Wilson and Matthew MacFayden spring to mind. It creates a tonal dissonance as two actors will appear side-by-side in a scene yet operate like they’re in two distinctly different productions. Once again, Wright’s central conceit undermines the thematic heft of the material and the gifts of his incredibly talented ensemble.
Yet for all of the film’s water treading, there’s still the joy of Keira Knightley gamely attacking the lead role. Anna Karenina is a part that you requires some work to screw up, and all you really need is a good actress in the part to make it work. Luckily, Wright was smart enough to bring his reoccurring leading lady onboard, wind her up in corsetry, and watch her tackle a stunning array of emotions and scenarios that cover all the bases of her greatest strengths. I’m particularly fond of an emotional breakdown brought on by jealousy, loneliness, resentment towards societal double-standards, and a bit of drink she has late in the film. She swings from manic, desperate highs to twitchy, snarling aggression, stops on a dime, then propels into tear-stained accusations and paranoia. It requires an actress of consummate skill, poise, and strength to manage such stop/start dynamics, but Knightley is one of the strongest working ones around.
Besides the refinery of the costumes, the beauty of the production design, the strength of the editing, there’s always Knightley’s strong central performance to recommend this version of Anna Karenina. Wright’s busybody choices as a director may have handicapped much of the final product, but he managed some smart choices along the way.
