He also has his actors mug and mince around like they're performing broad music-hall comedy, a style of acting that is not only incongruous with the source material but doesn't even make sense within the context of the film as written (the screenplay is by Tom Stoppard).

Which may have been fine as a framing device for the film, but he carries it through the entire thing until it becomes tedious.

The Russian aristocracy was a study in theatricality and Wright wants to play up its superficiality. For some reason, Wright decides to stage the entire film as if it's a play in a run-down theatre, so actors sit on purposely artificial sets and we see them moving through the wings as they get ready to make their entrances. The problems with that are 1.) Luhrmann is a terrible director and should be emulated by no one and 2.) His style is completely wrong for 'Anna Karenina' anyway. It's as if he stood over Baz Luhrmann's shoulder and decided that he was going to try to direct a film just like him. Director Joe Wright, who made the very good 'Pride and Prejudice' and the very forgettable 'Atonement,' turns Tolstoy's novel into an incoherent mess.

Reviewed by evanston_dad 2 / 10 An Experiment Gone Pretentiously Wrongĭreadful screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's magnificent novel.

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