Anna Karenina
Following the success of Atonement and Pride & Prejudice, director Joe Wright reunites with Keira Knightley for this lush and atmospheric adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, which screened as a Special Presentation at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival®. Scripted by acclaimed British playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love), Anna Karenina is a powerful and stylistically daring version of this epic love story about two people who defy the conventions of their age to follow the desires of their hearts.
Set against the richly textured canvas of late nineteenth-century Russian high society, Anna Karenina chronicles the doomed affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna
(Knightley, A Dangerous Method, Last Night) and dashing army officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson, Nowhere Boy, Albert Nobbs). Trapped in a loveless marriage to Count
Karenin (Jude Law, Hugo, 360), a prominent government official twenty years her senior, Anna is flattered when she attracts the attention of the charismatic Vronsky. Although Anna initially rejects Vronsky’s advances, the couple’s powerful mutual attraction only intensifies. When Anna eventually succumbs to her desires, she soon finds herself torn between her happiness and the rigid demands of society.
In a brilliantly neo-Brechtian twist, director Wright sets Anna and Vronsky’s tragic tale against a blatantly theatrical backdrop, with stagehands changing the sets as the starcrossed lovers play out their fateful romance.Anchored by Knightley’s commanding performance, and featuring an impressive supporting cast that includes Emily Watson (War Horse, Oranges and Sunshine), Kelly
Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire, No Country for Old Men), Domhnall Gleeson (True Grit, Never Let Me Go) and Olivia Williams (An Education, the upcoming Hyde Park on Hudson), Anna Karenina is a dynamic and gorgeously rendered adaptation of the literary classic.
CRITICAL NOTES
"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." —Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
FILM INFORMATION
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams, Emily Watson, Kelly MacDonald, Domhnall Gleeson
Year: 2012
Runtime: 130 minutes
Country: United Kingdom, France
Language: English
Distributor: Alliance Films
Ratings:
ON NR /
BC NR /
AB NR /
SK NR /
MB NR /
QC NR /
Maritmes NR
SCREENING DATES
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