Movie Review: Anna Karenina (2012)

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Plot: In late-19th-century Russian high society, St. Petersburg aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the dashing Count Alexei Vronsky.

Rating: 5/10

This post today is going to be written in bullet points, because I am simply too disappointed in the film to write out complete sentences.

Things I did not like about this film (and it is a lot):

It was a complete and utter waste of my time. Ugh. I will never have the two hours and odd minutes back that I allotted to this.
It is confusing, and not in that nice intelligent way where everything makes sense eventually, but in that way where you get to the end of the film and you are still like “what the fuck was that?” and like I said, not in a good type of way.
The directing. I get the angle they took here, trying to emultate that the film originates from a theatre production. The only thing they achieved this way was to ensure that the film never gelled.
The absolute complete lack of Russian accents. This is a film about Russians, right? Because it was British accents everywhere, and it is not something I usually complain about, but sheesh, the film is about a Russian lovestory.
The fact that this is NOT a love story. It is a story about two exceptionally selfish people who did not think for one second the impact their “love” would have on the world. Selfish and petulant, Anna Karenina deserves no sympathy. Although I do take into account how hard it must have been to have married someone proper rather than someone you love, it does not justify cheating on your very sweet husband and ignoring the child you claim to desperately love.
Aaron Taylor Johnson’s ridiculous moustache. I mean have you EVER?
Keira Knightley. She’s a hit and miss for me if I have to be perfectly honest. The problem is her adeptness to portray extremely unlikable characters, exactly like she did in Anna Karenina. Anyone who does that with such excellence must have some fundamental flaws. I love Knightley in Pride and Prejudice but her role in Never Let Me Go is enough to put you off her for life, let me assure you. Karenina is as well. There is simply no way I can justify her behavior by claiming she loved her lover.

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What I did like:

Jude Law’s character and performance. I do not understand why such a handsome man would ugly himself up so deliberately, but I truly found the character and portrayal without fault.
Alicia Vikander and Domnhall Gleeson, their love and the work they achieved. These two actors deserve so much praise. I really do like them a lot and find them extremely talented. Their love story in here is certainly better for Gleeson’s character than what happened in Ex Machina (hehehe) and how perfectly they ended up together and suited each other.

The film is a bunch of overdramatic nonsense and main characters that do not deserve any sympathy whatsoever.