Anna Karenina

A big budget adaptation of a 19th Century Russian novel that’s probably known more, if at all, by audiences today for it’s opening sentence -- 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' – than for anything that happens in the hundreds and hundreds of pages that follow. Is that really a movie you want to see? If it’s the latest version of Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement) and starring Keira Knightley as the tragic heroine of the title, the answer is a resounding YES! From almost the moment it starts, you can feel the excitement that what is about to unfold on the screen is not only unlike what you expected, but unlike anything you’ve seen even attempted by a director and his cast in many, many years. If Wright had taken a more traditional approach to the story, making a David Lean-style epic that focused on the sumptuous details of the costumes as much as it did the faces of the people wearing them, the cast he assembled for his movie would probably have pulled it off; they’re that good. They seem to be energized by the vision of the man behind the camera, though, and it adds flair to their performances.