Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
PG-13 | 04 April 1997 (USA)
Anna Karenina Trailers

Anna Karenina, the wife of a Russian imperial minister, creates a high-society scandal by an affair with Count Vronsky, a dashing cavalry officer in 19th-century St. Petersburg.

Reviews
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
celtic_chief The story itself is fairly good, but I just don't understand that so- called 'actors' are incapable of doing accents. This is supposed to be about Russia, not England. The English accents make this absolutely comical and lowers the standard of the production. Sometimes you wonder how they got their acting jobs in the first place if they are incapable....of acting. And acting includes doing accents. I think it also reflects the level of acting coming out from England when they only seem capable of doing English accents. Was the whole world English at one time? I couldn't bare to finish watching this film and had to leave it about a third of the way into it, mostly due to the accents.I kept thinking it was set in England. Best going for the book.
phd_travel This is one of the better versions of Anna Karenina. It's not too old or too new. It's hard to watch the slightly cheap BBC versions or the old black and white Hollywood versions. It is modern enough to have a fresh feel and great on location filming. It's also not too long. The score is wonderful - Tchaikovsky.Sophie Marceau looks beautiful and tragic. Her acting is good too although her accent isn't Russian. Supporting cast are all good including Alfred Molina.The main problem is Sean Bean was a strange choice. He doesn't look Russian and he isn't dashing enough. He's more the villain with his cruel look.It is interesting to compare this with the Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Reeve version. I think this one is better overall.
Andrew Chapman The BBC made a serial of this in the 70's and despite the lack of funding that went into that series, they pulled it off rather well. So finally about the iron curtain had been taken down, the filmmakers could use the best scenery Russia had to offer including the Romanov palace. And you would have thought Sean Bean in a 'Sharpe' style uniform would have made it a certain winner. Afraid not. This is a story of passion and romance and forbidden love, one where you feel for the characters, get entwined with them and almost beg them to stop whilst wishing they could get away with there illicit affair. This 1997 version, I felt no connection to the characters and couldn't really care less about the 2 dimensional performance. If I had bothered to watch it to the end, instead of hanging on the edge of the seat to stop Anna from jumping on the rail tracks, I probably would have volunteers to give her a push. A wonderful Russian tragic love story, though the only tragedy here being this lot bothered to make it.
Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3) To think this story has been filmed probably most often of all the Russian novels and that all the preceding versions managed to preserve their dignity while never quite getting to the point of the original novel... And then, this little bit of fluff had to come along. I caught this on Canadian Bravo tonight and what a disappointment. It strictly adheres to the European school of literary-adaptations-as-a-series-of-medical-emergencies-and-body fluids-melodrama. Sophie Marceau is no Greta Garbo or Russian grande bourgeoise, Lord knows. But would it be too much to ask for her to keep her facial features from contorting into a very anachronistic crack addict's at the slightest hint of "drama"? And the scene of her violent vaginal hemorrhage is definitely not in the novel but must have seemed de rigueur for the producers' sensibilities: childbirth was such an ordeal in those barbaric times, don't you know - we just had to show it... The music is by Tchaikowsky, Sean Bean is the sexiest man alive even when forced to wear clothes, the sets and costumes are by God, but the script is strictly Extreme Harlequin. As my late mother wisely used to say about most modern pap of this type: "Ils font exprès pour nous écoeurer!"