Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (2012) starring Kiera Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson.  Anna Karenina (Knightley), a married woman, falls in love with Count Vronsky (Taylor-Johnson) and has an affair with him. Her husband (Law) is willing to forgive her at first, but she is not willing to give up Vronsky -- and besides, she has Vronsky's child. The result is that Anna is disgraced and shunned by polite society. I haven't read Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina, but I understand that it is about a thousand pages long. It would seem that any attempt to condense it into a two-hour movie would be doomed, and in my opinion this movie has not succeeded. It's a dreary affair, and Anna and Vronsky are not sympathetic figures that we can cheer for. The ending is, ultimately, just depressing. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are supplied.) Grade: C