Director Joe Wright and actress Keira Knightley's 3rd collaboration after Pride and Prejudice (in which Knightley got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress) and Atonement, Anna Karenina looks good on paper with Jude Law and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the supporting roles but it comes out short for the vision that Wright wanted for Leo Tolstoy's classic tragic novel about an upper-class Russian wife and mother in 1874.
This version has the film being presented inside a theater like a stage play that transitions to some scenes in wintertime Russia and back again on inside the stage.
Unfortunately, adapting a film whose main character has complex emotions and flaws could not connect in a set-up that's best suited for musicals like Moulin Rouge in which the lead also had a tragic ending. Baz Luhrmann's musical and it's production numbers though best suited the theatrical background.
Keira Knightley gives a commendable performance in a film that does not know where to go. Her Anna has the face the vulnerability and tragedy and given a better directed film, she would have shone more.
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