Anna Karenina: Jude Law a Sympathetic Cuckold

Anna Karenina was my selection for a Saturday night movie. This is the Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice and Atonement) directed, Tom Stoppard adapted film of Tolstoy's classic adultery novel.

Keira Knightley is fine as Anna; so too is Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky. They're both radiant. But there isn't a whole lot of depth to their performances. Part of the problem might be packing a huge novel into two hours and ten minutes (which proved to be about 40-minutes too long for me; the last third of the movie really hits the sand). In order to accomplish this, and no doubt cut down on location costs, Wright sets the drama in a theater of 1870's Imperial Russia. So, for instance, at the beginning of the movie, when Levin visits Stiva at his job, they're on a stage; they make arrangements to go out to dinner that night; when the time comes, they go backstage and climb the cat walks and pick through the rigging to arrive at the restaurant. It's novel and arty and a fascinating way to begin the movie; it makes one realize that society is a play where everything is staged. But after an hour the contrivance has created too much separation between you and characters (which possibly is Stoppard's intent).

I read Anna Karenina when I first arrived in New York City and came down with strep throat. The edition I read was my mother's high school or college copy. I read it in about three weeks. It's a great book with several large narratives swirling around at once. Levin's story is just as central to Anna Karenina as Anna herself.

What stands out in this Wright-Stoppard version is the sympathetic -- I would say it even borders on heroic -- treatment of the cuckold Karenin, played ably by Jude Law. I don't know if it is because I'm close to Karenin's age myself and have suffered through an unfaithful partner or two since I read Anna Karenina a quarter-century ago, but I approve of this elevation. Anna and Vronsky seem especially indulgent and petulant in this production. Granted, society's reaction to Anna's affair is cruel and superficial; but gone almost completely is any sense of Anna as a heroine of women's liberation, something which was a big part of the BBC mini-series from the 1970's (which one can still see on Amazon).

This movie is great to look at and has an important message to impart about Romantic love and animality. It is a mature and perceptive film in line with Tolstoy's philosophy. It's not perfect, and it's not always riveting; but it's worth seeing.