Product Description

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This famous line commences a refreshingly modern interpretation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina-—an epic tale of love, duty, marriage and infidelity. This richly detailed film charts the tragic romantic triangle formed when the dashing Count Vronsky defies social conventions and falls into forbidden love with Anna, the ignored wife of an aristocrat. Soon, Anna’s children—a son by Alexei and illegitimate daughter by Vronsky—become pawns in Alexei’s game to see that Anna pays a terrible price for her indiscretion. With its gripping narrative and unbridled romance, Anna Karenina reveals the uncontrollable passion, emotional betrayal and courage of a woman who violates moral strictures and risks everything to follow her heart. Helen McCrory stars as Anna, along with Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting) as Count Vronsky, the handsome object of her desires; and Tony Award-winner Stephen Dillane (The Real Thing) as Alexei Karenin, Anna’s callously principled husband.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50126 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-11-09
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 240 minutes

Customer Reviews

True to the original--just fabulous
This is a stunning, not-stuffy-at-all adaptation of Tolstoy's seminal work. The casting is excellent and the script is true to the story line. Anna is particularly well-cast. She's passionate, loved by men and women alike, smart and compelling to watch. The two men in Anna's life are well cast, as well. Anna's husband's character is portrayed with all of the depth that he has in the book, which is an impressive feat. The man who plays Vronsky was a perfect choice even if he is blond and in the book he is dark.

The Kitty/Konstantin parallel plot is very well done, and both characters are also very well cast. In the book, Kitty has more depth than is portrayed, but she is beautiful and charming here nonetheless.

They don't rush the plot. It is presented thoughtfully which does Tolstoy's masterpiece the due it deserves. Watch this over several nights if you want. You'll think about it all day, every day until you're done watching the whole thing.

Superb rendition, great cast
I read the book many years ago, so I was very much looking forward to the PBS version. I was not at all disappointed. The cast was outstanding, especially, in my opinion that of Vronsky. Kevin McKidd played him with such touching depth and sensitivity, it left me breathless. Helen McCrory is also excellent as Anna, as was the character of Karenin. I am glad this version chose to give Karenin much more complexity and create him as a more sympathetic character than some of the other versions. This movie did an outstanding job of weaving the plot all together and coming to the final tragic conclusion. It left me spell-bound the whole way through. I can't imagine anyone coming away from viewing it and not be affected somehow for a long time. It is so relevant to today- just one of the greatest stories of all time. Simply wonderful.

Rapturous Anna
Helen McCrory literally embodied the role of the ill-fated Anna Karenina in this production. Her journey from the pinnacle of High Russian society to the depths of despair as an outcast was captured by Ms. McCrory exceptionally well.

Stephen Dillane and Kevin McKidd also expertly deliver, playing Alexei Karenin and Alexei, the Count Vronsky, respectively. Dillane's portrayal of the icy, unfeeling Karenin was superb; even more so was McKidd's steamy, passionate reading of the enamoured Vronsky.

I was also well pleased with the performances of dear old, always-in-period-pieces Amanda Root, and familiar faces with Paul Rhys and Paloma Baeza, all delivering excellent performances.

However, the role of Levin (Kitty's eventual husband), played by Douglas Henshall, worked my last Tolstoy-loving nerve. Actually, I was relatively unimpressed with the fact that the entire cast, while portraying Russian nobility and speaking about journeying to St. Petersburg and Moscow, spoke with upper-crust British accents. I believe well-developed Russian, or at least SOME version of Eastern-European, accents for the cast would have heightened the atmosphere of the Russian background in which the story is set. Mr. Henshall's ridiculously thick Scottish brogue -- dripping moss-covered syllables as he mumbles on about rubles and vodka and the czar (?!?!) -- simply defied both logic and validity.

I think his role could have been much better cast.

Overwhelmingly, however, "Anna" remained very true to the novel, and I think, despite his undoubted confusion over the accents of the actors, Mr. Tolstoy himself would consider this adaptation a credit to the world were he able to view it for himself.