Stylization and Theater in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina

Joe Wright has extensive experience with literary adaptions, both classical (Pride and Prejudice) and contemporary (Atonement). His 2012 adaptation of Tolstoy's popular ( and lengthy) masterwork Anna Karenina, however, is Wright's crowning achievement in this category. Instead of taking his audience on a faithfully executed though unbearably dull journey through the pages of the Russian classic, Wright delivers an exciting  and unique cinematic affair.

Joe Wright, director

Wright's adaptation of Anna Karenina is an over-the-top circus, with elaborately moving sets,  exquisite costuming, and intricately choreographed dance sequences. Each movement within the frame is deliberate, be it an actress in a luxurious ball gown or a swift scenery change between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Everything is staged; everything is theatrical.

Costumes by Jacqueline Durran, who won an Academy Award for her work in Anna Karenina

In fact, apart from the impossible movement of the cameras, the audience could be watching theater. Wright makes the provocative choice to use gilded sets which might have come straight from West End or Broadway. Wright allows the audience to witness the sets changing, and the characters walk past ropes and props and catwalks and backdrops without acknowledging them.

Keira Knightley's Anna Karenina in front of a clearly artificial set 

Yet Wright's blatant rejection of realism is not stiff or forced. Instead, it serves to emphasize the passion and melodrama of the source material, while at the same time acknowledging the rigid facade of the Russian social hierarchy. The costumes, set, and music are rich and decadent and operatic, mirroring the strong emotions and arduous abandonment of the infidelity between Karenina (Keira Knightley) and Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

Although the acting falls flat and cold in some respects, it is excusable here, largely because it is clearly not what we are meant to focus on. It's a passionate show. We aren't allowed any quiet, true emotion, but those moments aren't crucial- instead, all we can do is sit back and watch the melodrama explode around us.

Wright's adaptation is a bold re-imagining of Tolstoy. It seems here that he kept one eye fixed firmly upon the source while boldly reaching beyond what the great Russian writer might have ever imagined.