Movie : Anna Karenina

Last night we managed to get passes to a screening of the new Anna Karenina. I was 14 or 15 when I first read Anna Karenina (I was on a Russian classics kick) and loved it at the time. It's a problematic story and I enjoyed it more without a feminist & queer theory brain, so I'm loathe to reread it because I don't know if it'll capture me the same way. But I still remember most of the story so I didn't bother doing a reread before the movie. Movie adaptations of books, especially 800 page books with multiple subplots, often leave something to be desired. After all, the 1997 movie was pretty because of actors & being shot on location in Russia, but that was about it. It didn't do the story justice and I feel it didn't hold together enough as a movie. So I went into this movie with low expectations - if I got pretty costumes and pretty faces, I'd be happy.

Well, I was more than happy. The cinematography, art direction, choreography, score, and costumes were fantastic. I didn't realize Tom Stoppard had written the screenplay until the end credits rolled and then it made so much sense but it was also such a fitting choice. The screenplay in and of itself didn't blow me away, but the screenplay + the direction were a great fit. ( possible spoilers within )

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. No, it's not a faithful page by page adaptation of the book - to do that, you'd need a 20+ hour BBC miniseries. But it maintains the spirit and story of the book in a two hour movie and for that reason is a successful adaptation. You don't have to read the book to enjoy the movie, but as a lover of the book, I still enjoyed the movie.