Anna Karenina
2hr 10min.UK/France 2012. Directed by Joe Wright. With Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson.
Joe Wright directs Keira Knightley for the third time - after Pride & Prejudice and Atonement - in Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic novel of love and obsession (described by William Faulkner as “the best ever written”). Knightley’s Anna, unhappily married to Jude Law’s Alexei, begins an affair with Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson, Nowhere Boy, Kick-Ass) that parallels the womanising of her brother (Matthew Macfadyen, Spooks), but with vastly different social repercussions.
Set against the febrile atmosphere of late-19th century Russian high society, Wright’s film is genuinely epic in both ambition and execution, and features a breathtaking cast of established and up-and-coming performers.
Playing for two weeks.