British director Joe Wright has had considerable success with adaptations of Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) and Ian McEwan (Atonement), so he's well-prepared to take on Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy's timeless Anna Karenina.
Wright has taken strong cues from the theatrical nature of Tolstoy's characters, setting most of his film on a stage in a large 19th-century theatre. The set moves to reveal new scenes and set-ups, with the action also taking place in the wings and lofty heights among the theatre ropes and pulleys.
It's fabulously choreographed, handsomely designed and so very clever.
But the challenge with such a highly stylised production, with characters swooping through scenes in a dramatic and, at times, farcical manner, is to make the story real enough for viewers to care about the fate of the characters.
The story begins with Anna (Knightley, in her third movie with Wright) visiting her heartbroken sister-in-law Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) to convince her to stay with her husband, Anna's charming but philandering brother Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen). On her train journey home, Anna is introduced to Vronsky (Taylor-Johnson), a charming young cavalry officer, and an initial flirtation leads to an affair.
