Let's face it, Anna Karenina has been done. To death. Leo Tolstoy's literary classic about love and betrayal in the upper echelons of society has been adapted so many times that there's nothing new to do with it, which is precisely why it was so promising when visionary director Joe Wright(Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) decided to take it on. Surely, if anyone could put a fresh coat of paint on the worn out story it'd be him, as he's elevated period pieces beyond their stodgy trappings in the past. To be fair, he accomplishes the goal of making this the most breath-taking version of Anna Karenina you're likely to ever see, but it can't escape that Tolstoy's story was never built for such artifice.
The glamor and decadence of 19th century Russian socialites is captured with stunning, gorgeous detail, set within the confines of a dilapidated old sound stage. But lest one worry that it's a stagnant, stagey line-reading like Lars von Trier's Dogville, it's actually quite the opposite. The set is essentially a living, vibrant thing in and of itself. The sets move fluidly to melt one scene into the next, as characters race about, dressing one another along the way and transforming into someone entirely different. A ripped up letter drifts into a heavy snowfall, while a seemingly innocuous fan becomes the pounding of a stampede of horses. The passion Wright and his ingenious art department put into the look of the film is tremendous, imbuing the film with a boundless energy and imagination that Tolstoy's story simply isn't sturdy enough to sustain.
And as the film begins to drag, and Anna's (Keira Knightley) infidelity becomes more exhausting than engrossing, so too does all that pageantry become more of a distraction. Set in 19th century Russia, Anna is a member of high society, with her boring and passionless husband Alexei (Jude Law) a high-ranking government bureaucrat. A mother to a little boy who loves her dearly, she seems to only find joy when in her son's presence. A trip to Moscow to help repair the marriage of her philandering brother Oblonsky (Matthew MacFadyen), ironically leads to the destruction of her own when she hits it off with the handsome and charismatic soldier Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).


Unfortunately, the film also keeps us at arm's length with all its bells and whistles. Still, it's hard not to be enamored by Wright's ambition, and admire the lengths he's willing to go to make his Anna Karenina a truly unique adaptation. But Tolstoy's story, always a drab and ponderous affair, is best left to the printed page and not the world of feature film, no matter how pretty it may be.