Taking 800-plus dense pages of reading and condensing it into 2.2 hours of screen time is no easy task. The latest film version of Anna Karenina, directed by hotshot moviemaker Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement), does just that. Shifting quickly from scene to scene in an elaborate theatrical complex that quite literally brings the major events of Tolstoy’s epic to the stage, Wright’s adaptation moves the viewer between storylines. This artistic move works successfully on the whole, but unexplained epiphanies and plot points ultimately hinder the project.
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