Anna Karenina (1997)

Sophie Marceau plays the title character in this 1997 version of Tolstoy's classic, set in Imperial Russia. Bernard Rose (Paperhouse) directs, but his accent is on sumptuousness instead of performance, and the result is that much of what happens--especially Anna's affair with Vronsky (Sean Bean)--is opaque and unbelievable. (Bean in particular is badly suited to his part.) A redeeming feature is Alfred Molina's role as the narrator, but he alone can't prop up Rose's façade of grand passion. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

A visual masterpiece

One of the most visualy stunning costume dramas I have ever seen! Every thing is so beautifu the actors, the costumes which deserved an oscar nomination, the authentic russian sets and a great score. Sophie Marceau is beautiful as Anna but lacks the acting ability to play such a complex character. Sean Bean as Vronsky and Sophie Marceau have great chemistry. The film has sparks of greatness but fails. Some scenes like the ball scence and Anna's death are beautifuly shot and succeed and most others just seem lukewarm. Levin story is cut to only to a few minutes they probably should have not included him and just focused on Anna's story in my opinion. It pains me to say this but the film is wort buying if only for the visuals. I watch my copy on mute most of the time listing to Air. June 14, 2008

Some splendid scenes, and yet...

I've seen the Greta Garbo version; the Nicola Pagett TV adaptation and the Helen McCrory TV adaptation. They all have good things about them. For one, you can't really go wrong with the story: a beautiful young woman, married to an older man for convenience, falls desperately in love for the first time with a young officer, and he with her.

Onto this version... The chemistry between Sean Bean and Sophie Marceau is there, and they both give excellent performances. James Fox also makes an excellent, not totally unsympathic Karenin (thankfully miles above Basil Rathbone's stone cold performance in the Greta Garbo version.) And Alfred Molina is, hands down, the best Levin I can ever remember. He looked great, too; very trim & handsome.

The hair, makeup, costumes and glorious St. Petersburg setting (with detours to Italy and the Russian countryside) are simply beautiful. The soundtrack is my next purchase - perfectly chosen pieces of classical music, which enhance this film immeasurably.

But. There's always a but... I have to say the film left me a little cold. For all the care and attention lavished on the scenery, and the good performances, little missteps kept bothering me...Why did the writer chose to make Anna's daughter die at birth? (Doing this oversimplified the reason(s) for Anna's growing despair and eventual breakdown, which is much more complex in the book. And the fact that she couldn't feel even a small particle of the affection she has for her son, for her baby daughter, was very compelling.) Why did they bump up the time frame from 1875-77 to 1880-83? This didn't make much sense to me at all. Why didn't they include the scene where Levin actually meets Anna, and why have Levin narrate the film if he never actually met her? Odd choices.

I just felt a little distant from the story being told, somehow. I loved certain individual scenes -- Levin in the fields with his peasants, marvelous; the ball where Anna and Vronsky realize they love each other (to Kitty's despair). I thought Sean Bean struck exactly the right note as a man loving a woman through an impossible situation, but feeling the frustration caused by her jealousy of his freedoms (which she lacks).

But somehow, it never all came together into one compelling drama. Very much worth seeing, but it did leave me a bit cold.
June 13, 2008

Sophie Marceau Spoiled It

Sorry, I just couldn't get into this version of the movie. I began watching it on TV this evening. I've read the book, which is one of the most brilliant classics ever written in my opinion. I also saw a TV series several years ago starring Nicola Paget. This series, I thought, made a pretty good attempt at being faithful to the book, and Nicola Paget portrayed the beautiful, troubled Anna in a most believable way.

Sophie Marceau, however, was too far removed from what I perceived Anna must have looked and acted like. Marceau seemed more like an ordinary present day college girl caught in a time warp. She didn't look particularly beautiful (and those straight bangs didn't help any!) and one couldn't help but wonder why Vronsky would give her a second glance.

Considering the lofty quality of the book, this movie was pretty ordinary. May 30, 2008

cinq étoiles

I am shocked how many people didn't like the movie. I absolutely loved it. Anyone who read the book knows that you cannot make a 2-hour movie from 969-page book without leaving many details out. It is not supposed to be a transcript of the book! I thought everything was done excellently, including the chosen cast and the acting. Perhaps being European I don't need melodramatic scenes of screaming, nudity, explicit love scenes and spilled blood - as Hollywood movies are so "good" at - to enjoy my movies. People who wrote the reviews here expected bloody ending, how sad. The movie was done with such a class, so tastefully, yet so powerfully! Sophie Marceau is one of my very favourite actresses and she, as well as others, have done a superb job! The change in languages gave the movie exotic touch and authenticity and a little taste of Russia. The fact that they mixed French is only a reflection that high class, (educated people nowadays) spoke and used a lot of French in their languages. My language, which is not English, uses French expressions, simply because it is so apropos. So, a lot of people here sadly just missed the point. The "stoic" characters have to do with culture and time, all perfectly in place. People here wanted to see American drama, that's all. I recommend seeing it for yourself before reading these reviews. July 5, 2007

Interesting to read all these reviews

I just watched this movie on video, and was curious what others thought, so I checked out the reviews. What really stands out to me is how much each individual brings of him or herself to an experience.

You can review several things about the film--how true it was to the book, or, conversely, how entertaining it was on its own; how well-cast you thought the main characters were, and whether or not they had sexual chemistry; and what you thought of the production values and directorial choices such as having the main characters speak Russian to the servants and peasants. So, acknowledging that what appeals to me might be anathema to someone else, here's what I thought.

I think Sophie Marceau is quite beautiful, and I would have believed that she couldn't resist her attraction to Vronsky, but the script (or editing) jumped so quickly to the affaire that I couldn't quite do it. I was almost convinced, though, because I would have found Sean Bean impossible to resist. He conveyed perfectly a rather superficial aristocrat, whose first taste of depth and intensity was his response to this beautiful woman, and who couldn't/wouldn't think beyond satisfying his need to experience that feeling. He didn't seem too old or too cold to me--I thought his eyes expressed quite a bit of heat and passion, even if the script (or again, editing) kept him from expressing them verbally.

The issue of accents is also interesting--I guess, as an American, I can readily accept British and French accents performing a nineteenth century Russian story, but the American ones seem jarring to me--my disbelief is abruptly not suspended any more--it comes roaring back, saying, "That's an actor, and not a very convincing one, at that."

The costumes may not have been authentic, I didn't care, I just enjoyed looking at them. The sets, likewise. The story was poorly abridged, but I knew before I watched it that it would be, just from the length factor. The script lacked continuity, but I still found it moderately entertaining on its own terms. So, would I recommend this movie? Yes, but with reservations. January 23, 2007

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