You know that Old Spice commercial where the football-hunk emerges from the shower and then suddenly he’s riding a horse, and he says, “I’m riding a horse”?
Anna Karenina is one long Old Spice commercial—you are on a stage, then you open a door and walk out into the Karenin’s house. You open a closet door in the house and suddenly you are in a field. It’s neato, but I didn’t know the movie was going to go all art-house on me, so it took me a while to get my bearings, and I wasn’t happy during that time.
I like to go to the movies because it’s fun to check out of my realities for a couple of hours and sink slowly into a more and more comfortable place where I am experiencing the Story. Here, I’m not sure I would have known what was going on had I not read the book, but even knowing where the story was going, I had a hard time committing to the movie because of the weirdness of the scene changes.
I definitely recommend you see Anna if only to hear what you have to say about the spatial organization, the walking from here to there without benefit of the intermediate space.
Which suddenly reminds me of Adjustment Bureau, that funky God-is-a-matchmaker-who-lives-in-a-Manhattan-high-rise movie in which angels wear fedoras that allow them to go from Coney Island to Central Park just by opening a door. In this movie, no fedoras are required, and that’s what I call progress.
The story. In case you are illiterate or just behind on your Tolstoy (what is the matter with you?), I’ve invited a young woman to sketch the plot:
So like there’s this guy named Steva and he slept with the nanny, so his wife Dolly is totes mad at him, so she’s all, I’m leaving you, but he’s all, no, my sister will come talk you out of that. So, he like totally makes his sister Anna come and like talk Dolly into staying with him, even though he’s a complete pig and is still going to do all the nannies, but whatevs, because while Anna is there, she goes all cougar and sluts off with Count Vronsky, who was supposed to marry Dolly’s sister Kitty, but only Kitty thought so, because she didn’t realize that Vronsky was only using her, but really he’s sleeping with regimental whores. So then, Vronsky follows Anna home and she says, “No, go away,” but she really means, hurry up, let’s have sex, so they do, and it’s kind of gross, but the movie doesn’t show any like body parts, only a lot of breathing, but Anna’s husband Alex finds out because Anna’s all “I’m his mistress.” Anna gets preggers, and guess what—Vronsky is so totally the baby-daddy, but Russia is like so completely backward and anti-woman that Alex totally gets full custody of both the 10-year-old boy and the new baby, even though it isn’t even his baby. Anna almost dies, so she asks Alex to forgive her, but then—sooo amazing—she gets better and she says, I don’t want your forgiveness because I want to go everywhere with Vronsky. So they go everywhere and then she gets all mad because no one will visit her, because she’s like a total slut who steals her sister-in-law’s almost-fiance, but Vronsky can still hang out with everyone, because the world is so screwed up and there are like totally different rules if you’re a man or if you’re a woman. That gets Anna mad, because she’s like stuck in the house, so she goes to the opera and everyone stares at her and sends tweets like, “Slut’s here,” but everyone is nice to Vronsky even though he is the whole and only reason Anna even has a baby, so natch she is so totally jealous that he can go around like normal, like nothing is wrong, and she’s like in Vronsky’s face all, “you don’t love me,” and, “Why did you look at that girl,” and like, “Are you leaving me?” and then she gets so upset and depressed, she’s like, “I’m totes going to throw myself under the train,” and like, she does.
That is what happens, and it’s your own fault, you Tolstoy-challenged individual, you, if you didn’t know about the train thing (it’s balanced—there’s a train death in the beginning and one at the end), because it’s not called a “spoiler” if the book has been out since like forever. Totally.
The movie is very careful to make Alexsei Karenin into the victim. In the book, you’re sort of rooting for the adulterers because the book is long and we have a lot of time to get to know the people, hear them talk, understand their thinking and their emotions.
The movie is more like hopping from wave crest to wave crest, in the sense that it only touches upon the main points—it’s more like an outline of the story with pretty costumes and weird door-openings. (Weirdly, a lot of the movie happens on a stage, including, I kid you not, the horse race.)
Victim or not, I have my problems with Mr. Karenin (played by the wonderful Jude Law), and that is this: if your wife complains of boredom and complains that you never talk to her and wonders whether you love her or find her beautiful or even if you want to be with her, and you do not answer her questions, do not be surprised when she responds to someone who is not boring, talks with her, loves her, is enraptured by her beauty and wants to be with her. Hey! I’m talking to you!
More marriage advice for the silent husband who sits around reading: if she tells you that she is seeing someone, has become his mistress, and is bearing his child, and you continue to read and never express love for her or remorse that you have been a world class creator of soul-crushing boredom, you may have grounds for keeping the children and your place in society, but I will be screaming at you: What is the matter with you. Go After Her. Moron.
The moral of the story—and it is very beautifully articulated onscreen—is that your sin will find you out. In Anna’s case, she is destroyed from the inside out to such an extent that she finishes the job by stepping into the path of the train. However, I can see her point. It would be nigh impossible to return from an ecstatic, soulmatey, passionate love to the dull, heartless, emotional sterility of Karenin’s home.
In the end, he’s got the children. He’s still sitting in his stupid chair reading some stupid thing. He doesn’t appear remorseful for being the World’s Most Boring Individual, and is probably plotting his dull conquest of some new woman who will share his palatial surroundings. He’ll find her. There’s someone for everyone, so Mr. Karenin should be able to find someone whose whole goal in life is to marry a cuckolded rich man who doesn’t speak and doesn’t care about her enough to tell her she’s pretty.
Tolstoy is obviously a genius. He, like his countryman Dostoevski (or, wait a minute, like all Russian writers), can make a long, intensely beautiful story about betrayal and soul destruction, and leave me in tears and wanting more. The movie, not so much, but it could serve as a sort of pared-down Cliff Notes, touching, as it does, only on the high notes. Also, the clothes are lovely. If there is an Oscar in this, it’s for Costumes or Art Direction or Set Construction.
And, just so you know, Kitty does find true love.