a film review: Anna Karenina

i don't think this will really be a review, but more of me gushing about how beautiful this film was. and i cannot compare this film to the novel because i have not read Anna Karenina. it's an 800+ page Russian novel. are you kidding me? the names and numbers of characters alone would get me all mixed up. you lost me before i even started, Tolstoy. but i do know the gist of the novel. and the film has Keira Knightley (whom i adore), and it's a costume drama (hells yes).

*spoiler alert! spoiler alert!

okay i lied. i did have issues. here we go with a review:

i had a problem with the setting of the film. not that it was set in Russia because you cannot have Anna Karenina without Russia, but how the film takes place in a theater. yes i get that we are being "artistic" here, but i felt that if the film is set in a theater then it should be in a theater. all or nothing. like during the big horse race scene, it's in the theater. but when we are out working in the hay fields we are actually in the hay fields. why can't the hay fields be in the theater too? at the end when we see Anna's children playing in the field of flowers, it's on the stage in the theater. maybe he is trying to tell us that "true love" takes place outside in the real world, and that everything in the theater is artificial.

i didn't believe in Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky. this is not the man who could seduce Anna and make her his mistress. he looked like a boy playing dress up (it's Kick-Ass with a really bad mustache).

i'm not sure how we are supposed to feel with the ending. i felt that the novel might want us to feel sorry for Anna and upset that she killed herself. but in the film i was all like, "when is this crazy bitch gonna throw herself under the train because she be all cray-cray and annoying."

i did love the scene where Anna and her husband would go to bed. she would be in bed waiting for him and he would walk in and go to his dresser and pull out a box that had his condom in it. ick! and also amazing. can you imagine condom's before they were disposable and latex. thank goodness for the advances of condoms.

but let's move on.

i have to say that the film was gorgeous! something Joe Wright and company is very good at. every film i've seen of his is just beautiful.

the costumes and jewelry were breathtaking and i'm not a jewelry kind of person. coming home after seeing this film i found myself scouring the internets for the jewelry Keira wore in this film, particularly her rings. just amazing.  

i really wish i could find pictures of just the rings Keira wore in the film, but i can't (and i'm not looking very hard, but oh well). so hear are some pictures of some of the costumes that i just adored.

and that pearl necklace. i love it. no longer the necklace for stay-at-home wasp women. where their string of pearls is tucked nicely under their collared oxford shirt. no sir. this is the necklace of a sexual being who takes on a lover. this necklace is that of Russian affluent society (okay, i've been reading a bit too much of my Bared to You book right now. just bear with me).

so sit back, have a glass of wine and enjoy this beautiful film. xoxo.