I ventured out to see this film with my local book club. I had gotten through part one of the novel. It's a daunting read... no... it's exhaustive. Ridiculous amount of detail.
The movie brought the book alive. It was awesome. Everything in my senses were stimulated. Delicious feeling. Just the vivid colors of the costumes and scene changes and the scenes themselves were exquisite. Lots of attention to detail.
One of the few movies that made me really satisfied intellectually. Lots of movies these days do the work for you. This one, you had to infer, extract data and then come to conclusions. Beautifully done.
Anna Karenina is played by Keira Knightley. who definitely brought her A-game to this role. It's like she was born to play it.
Jude Law plays her husband, Karenin. He is amazing. The movie brought something else to the character. I think I sympathized more with his character than the one I read about in the book. He brought a humanity.. a softness to the role I hadn't expected.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Vronsky. That's all I can say on that. I don't think the character was built to be likable or memorable in this case. Anna is the focal point and takes the stage front and center.
To say that I enjoyed it is a total understatement. I can't wait to own it and watch it over and over again.
At the end, there's a cryptic message that makes you actually want to get the book and read it. Any movie that can do that gets top honors in my book.
Yes! I'm hoping to see this SOON, it might be on tap for the weekend. I actually know very little of the story, so all of it will be new to me; but I find myself wanting to read it, too, soooo, we'll see.
ReplyDeleteAnd.....OH MY WORD! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU MADE MY YEAR WITH YOUR COMMENT ON MY DEEPER FAMILY POST? (Did you mean you had tried to comment to my posts on my site @ Pensieve??).
THANK you for offering me encouragement through your generous, enthusiastic words. Truly, you've blessed me in ways inexpressible. I'm grateful and encouraged xo.
Based on what I know of you through your writing, you will love this movie.
DeleteI'm so glad you reviewed this! Anna Karenina is a book I've often thought about reading but never done. The previews looked so beautiful, but I wasn't sure it was enough to convince the hubby to see it! :) Thanks for the good review. I'm putting it on our list of to-see movies.
ReplyDeleteYou will love it. Let me know when you see it..
DeleteBy the way, if you read the book, this was an essential guide.. ESSENTIAL!!
Deletehttp://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Your-Guide-to-Understanding-Tolstoys-Anna-Karenina