Anna Karenina

Jacqueline Bisset gives a heartfelt reading of the great Russian heroine and is at perhaps the peak of her beauty having past her girlish prettiness and entered into an exquisite loveliness. The awesome Paul Scofield commands the screen every second he is present and makes the cuckolded husband's anguish and sense of betrayal and the cruelty that is the result understandable. Christopher Reeve cuts a dashing figure and gives it his best shot but his costars simply act rings around him. This was Jackie's TV bow and reminds you of a time when movie stars moving to television were afforded the opportunity to do something special because there were fewer networks and larger audiences willing to give quality work a chance.

Made in 1985 when movie stars starring in a TV movie was an event, as opposed to the general consensus "My God! What is he/she doing in a TV movie.... Must need the money"

Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Bisset) leaves her cold husband (Paul Schofield) for the dashing Count Vronsky (Christopher Reeve) in 19th-century Russia. The unfortunate series of events leave her hopelessly depressed.

Christopher Reeve and Jaqueline Bisset act everyone else off the screen in this movie, Judy Bowker in a small role as the naive Kitty deserves mention and Paul Schofield is OK, but slightly melodramatic at times. both are the only two actors who seem able to keep up with Reeve and Bisset, everyone else is instantly forgettable, and leaves no lasting impression.

Bisset is the core of the movie, as the tragic title character. Reeve was a splendid actor, who rather than appear running round with his top off shooting a gun in mainstream action pics chose to make interesting movies with a good story and good characters. (He was quoted as saying "I wanted to be an actor, not an action star") Sadly these pictures never found audiences as movie goers refused to see him as anything other than Superman/Clark Kent. This was filmed in between Superman 3 and 4, and Reeve succeeded in making a good movie with good characters

The one thing missing from this is a great score, instead we get a by the numbers routine score, that could have been lifted from any number of movies.

This is the movie that Christopher Reeve learned to ride a horse, and fell in love with horse riding. It would, of course prove to be fatal. There is an awful moment when Reeve falls from his horse, in a chilling reminder of his real life fate, just 10 years later.

This 1985 version of Anna Karenina (unfortunately unobtainable at present on DVD) has some good things in it - mainly the performances of some of the actors. Chief among these are Jacqueline Bisset as the eponymous heroine, mature yet still youthful and sensual though never over-dramatic, and Paul Scofield, who makes Karenin very human despite his cold nature. It is unfortunate that Christopher Reeve is only adequate as Vronsky, his acting was rather wooden though he looks impressive, but although eight years younger than Bisset he comes across as being about the same age, which should not be the case. Joanna David is good as Dolly, but Judi Bowker's limited range is unable to make much of Kitty, although the script (see below) gives her limited scope anyway.

The worst aspect of the film is the script. It dumps completely the Kitty/Levin parallel plot, probably for time considerations - Levin does not appear at all, and Kitty does so only when needed in relation to Vronsky. This causes at least two serious losses - the stark contrast between the Anna/Vronsky and Kitty/Levin relationships, which is an important thread running through the book; and the contrast between the formality and dissipation of city and society life on the one hand, and on the other, the simplicity and truth of the countryside. These were very important to Tolstoy. Even in more minor ways, though, the script is poor - it changes parts of the Anna/Vronsky/Karenin story, and even has scenes which are not in the book or are almost unrecognisable because they have been changed.

The suicide scene is well staged, which is often far from the case; but the scene at the start with the railway worker's death is not shown properly at all, which somewhat destroys the intended comparison.

Production values put an emphasis on quietly luxurious settings. The film was shot with rather dark lighting, which although probably realistic, now seems very old-fashioned.

I have always been a huge Jacqueline Bisset Fan and believe my opinion of her was sealed when I saw this wonderful made for TV movie in 1985. Many women have tried to capture the essence of Anna Karenina but most have never captured all of it. I believe Ms. Bisset has achieved that and the psychologically dependent, multi-faceted Anna is totally believable in Bisset's hands as she agonizes over the choices life is now presenting her with. On the surface, the differences between Karenin and Count Vronsky are clear and yet...divorce was anathema for women living in that era. Paul Scofield is superb as Karenin and no one has done it better than he! So too Anna Massey, Judi Bowker, Joanna David and Ian Ogilvy are quite creditable in their roles. The only drawback for me was the casting of Christopher Reeve as the "dashing" Count Vronsky. He did not have the "dash" or flair and certainly did not possess the acting chops to handle such a stylized, European role. As tall and as handsome as he was, he never had the finesse necessary for such a piece and outside of the terrible coincidence involving the accident with his horse, which paralleled his real-life tragedy...I do not believe he should have been cast.

As a Christopher Reeve fan and one who is in the middle of reading the Leo Tolstoy novel, I was excited to see this rendition of "Anna". Although it was good to see Chris in his pre-accident years, the movie was fairly weak. The soundtrack doesn't hold up well almost 20 years later, and the writing isn't great. They virtually ignore the storyline involving Levin and Kitty, and I didn't find Bissette's performance to be very riveting. However, Paul Scofield did an excellent job as Karenin-- I actually felt some empathy for him.

A better version of this story was done in 1997 with Sophie Marceau ("The World Is Not Enough") and Sean Bean ("Lord of the Rings"). There is far more chemistry between those two actors, and the quality of the movie should hold up better over time.