CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

romanilover THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I SAW WHO SEAN BEAN WAS. I WAS TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH HIM IN THIS FILM AND THE DANCE SCENE IN BALLROOM. I WANTED THEM TO GO ON FOREVER. I JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY PICKED AN ACTRESS WITH THOSE SILLY BANGS. ALTHOUGH I THOUGHT SHE PLAYED THE PART WELL. AS FOR SEAN..................BE STILL MY HEART.

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!"

nemo_cinema It's time directors should refrain from distorting the language of literature (not just some best selling silly fiction). With expensive sets, historic backdrop, all kinds of grandeur and glamorous actresses they simply forget what the main story is all about. And things go absolutely disastrous when do the same kind of treatment to Tolstoy (one of the greatest authors the world of literature has ever seen).This is absolute audacity. Anna Karenina is not just a story of a naive infidel wife. And when there is an attempt to fit in just a few snapshots within those few hours all you get is a bogus piece of movie like this. It's meaningless to talk about how the movie did not match up to the novel. Watching this movie is just another (silly) experience of costumes and glamorous sets; like watching a fashion show and nothing else.

Robert John Bennett According to an earlier review, this movie is supposed to be "just plan awful." The writer probably meant "plain" instead of "plan," and that misspelling may be an indication of the quality of the review.There is much to be said for the viewpoint that this film version of Tolstoy's novel, starring Sophie Marceau, must certainly be one of the greatest versions ever produced.Tolstoy himself lived to see just the beginning of the era of the motion picture and was said to have been fascinated by the possibilities the new medium presented. If so, he would no doubt have been quite astonished at the beauty and the extraordinary quality of this rendition of his story about Anna Karenina. The production values are among the highest there could possibly be. The costumes, the cinematography, and the sets – unlike earlier versions, the film was shot on location in St. Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia – are at such a remarkable level that the action almost does appear to be really taking place in the Czarist period at the end of the nineteenth century.As for Sophie Marceau's mild French accent – which the above-mentioned reviewer found so irritating – it is quite likely that many upper-classes Russians of the period actually did speak with a French accent. It was not Russian but French that was the dominant language among the Russian nobility and aristocracy of the time – for some, French was in fact their native language, since many of them never learned to speak Russian at all, except perhaps a few words and phrases they could use to communicate with the servants.What is perhaps most remarkable of all in this film is the utterly believable way that the behavior of the of characters is presented. Their motives are suggested with great subtlety, not in the somewhat simplistic tones of the (nevertheless still magnificent) MGM version of the film that starred Greta Garbo seventy years ago. Anna's husband is not a monster, for example, in this new version, but a rather pathetic, right-wing government bureaucrat with obsessively strict moral values. Moreover, the portrayal of Anna's behavior throughout the film, and especially in the final scenes, is a masterpiece of sympathetic psychological insight and understanding.This film is a – for the time being, anyway – neglected classic.