Anna Karenina

To be honest, I have not read this book. I have heard that it was a classic and all those other things that people say about his book, but really had no idea what the story is about. Actually, the main reason that I watched this movie, was that Sean Bean was in it(I had previously seen him in Lord of the Rings, and really enjoyed him). I was surprised to find this story so engaging. I thought that he was amazing in this movie, very charming. He just has this intangible quality that always has me rooting for him.

This is the first movie that I have ever seen Sophie Marceau in(playing Anna Karenina) and I found that she portrays Anna with a delicate grace, that makes you understand Vronsky's(Bean) dogged pursuit of her.

True, I have to say that I found the end a little disappointing, and heart-wrenching. Sean Bean shines at the end of the movie, I think he really shows well just how much Vronsky finally realizes he has lost.

Visually, this film is gorgeous. Sophie Marceau is perfect as Anna and Alfred Molina also shines. Sean Bean, known for finding the humanity in the worst of characters, is the most likeable, sympathetic and attractive Vronsky I have seen. He does not portray the transformation of the selfish, spoilt, wealthy and aristocratic mother's darling into a deeply remorseful, more mature individual who learns that there is a price to pay for taking whatever you want and you had better consider the price worth it. A pity as the contrasting story of Levin (Alfred Molina) and his unselfish devotion to Princess Kitty requires that the point be made. You reap what you sow. Similarly, James Fox is too tolerant and long-suffering as Karenin. Tostoy's Karenin is a self-important bureaucrat who disguises his revenge on Anna as piety. HOWEVER...maybe not be accurate Tolstoy but the sheer niceness of all the characters makes one care far more when tragedy strikes than I ever did when I read the book. Gorgeous music also.

I'm not sure how this movie slipped past me, as I try to stay on top of the period movies that come out. Nonetheless I caught it on one of the Encore channels last night, and I'm glad I did. Visually this movie is incredible! The cinematography could not have been much better, down to small details such as Levin "mowing" in the fields with the scythe in perfect rhythm with the workers.

As much as I like the film, however, I'm disappointed that Sophie Marceau's portrayal of Anna was not more passionate. On the whole I thought her performance was pretty good, but I agree with the comments above that she could have exhibited a much more involved and emotional presence in the face of a love that she could not resist. Ditto for Sean Bean, although he was somewhat better at it than Sophie. It's a situation where one fervently wishes that the actors were better than they were, because you know that it would have made the movie a "10." Both Bean and Marceau did provide some excellent glimpses into the souls of their characters, but only glimpses. One would wish for more intimate looks into their motivations and their respective desolations. I was not at all put off by accents of the actors. So Marceau has a mild French accent...French was the dominant language of the Russian court up to the Revolution, so it would not have been out of place at all.

The story of Levin and Kitty fares better, if only because of the stellar performance of Alfred Molina. Offhand I can't think of a more underrated actor (save perhaps Ron Perlman). Ms. Kirshner was fine as Kitty, although her journey from infatuation with Vronsky to love for Levin was given short shrift.

Overall I loved this movie, but I just wish it had been two marks better.

According to an earlier review, this movie is supposed to be "just plan awful." The writer probably meant "plain" instead of "plan," and that misspelling may be an indication of the quality of the review.

There is much to be said for the viewpoint that this film version of Tolstoy's novel, starring Sophie Marceau, must certainly be one of the greatest versions ever produced.

Tolstoy himself lived to see just the beginning of the era of the motion picture and was said to have been fascinated by the possibilities the new medium presented. If so, he would no doubt have been quite astonished at the beauty and the extraordinary quality of this rendition of his story about Anna Karenina. The production values are among the highest there could possibly be. The costumes, the cinematography, and the sets – unlike earlier versions, the film was shot on location in St. Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia – are at such a remarkable level that the action almost does appear to be really taking place in the Czarist period at the end of the nineteenth century.

As for Sophie Marceau's mild French accent – which the above-mentioned reviewer found so irritating – it is quite likely that many upper-classes Russians of the period actually did speak with a French accent. It was not Russian but French that was the dominant language among the Russian nobility and aristocracy of the time – for some, French was in fact their native language, since many of them never learned to speak Russian at all, except perhaps a few words and phrases they could use to communicate with the servants.

What is perhaps most remarkable of all in this film is the utterly believable way that the behavior of the of characters is presented. Their motives are suggested with great subtlety, not in the somewhat simplistic tones of the (nevertheless still magnificent) MGM version of the film that starred Greta Garbo seventy years ago. Anna's husband is not a monster, for example, in this new version, but a rather pathetic, right-wing government bureaucrat with obsessively strict moral values. Moreover, the portrayal of Anna's behavior throughout the film, and especially in the final scenes, is a masterpiece of sympathetic psychological insight and understanding.

This film is a – for the time being, anyway – neglected classic.

This was surprisingly good. I'm not that much a fan of the Romance genre, if truth be told, but I'll make an exception for this one. The film is carefully crafted. Every emotion, every dialogue enhanced the overall tone of the film, slowly but surely escalating in its momentum up to its tragic climax.

Sophie Marceau was brilliant. As was Sean Bean. I wasn't quite sure if they would be able to possess the kind of chemistry needed to pull this off, if truth be told, considering how they (in my opinion) seem to be of different temperament artistically (Sophie being more sensitive as seen in Braveheart and Marquis, while Bean is more explosive). Nevertheless, it worked out fine although, ironically, their relationship seem to be more believable whenever they fell out of odds with each other. :)