La revue de presse

This is new and risky, but Wright carries it off in a way that is so beautiful and practiced and sensible, that it doesn’t seem as if the director is testing something new out on us. It’s a gorgeous and transportive film, that uses its innovative set, staging, and costumes to access the essence of Tolstoy’s original material.

4. "Anna Karenina" (dir. Joe Wright)
When the budget for his Leo Tolstoy adaptation started spiralling beyond reach, director Joe Wright turned lemons into the most dazzling lemonade of the year. The single location, interchangeable setting conceit of "Anna Karenina" wound up breathing new life in the literary adaptation genre as a whole, heightening the already roiling emotions of the story. Featuring setpieces and sequences (the opening introduction, the dance, the horse race) as breathtaking in dimension as anything in a summer blockbuster, and executed with tremendous skill, the film marries its visuals to the powder keg story it tells. And hidden within are two of the most underssung performances of the year: Jude Law as the cuckolded husband, who struggles to save face while protecting the honor of his wife and Matthew Macfadyen as Oblonsky, who faces any situation with a tender zest for life. Does the film overcook its own concept? Perhaps, but it's a cinematic dish I'd happily have again.

Joe Wrights Neuverfilmung von „Anna Karenina“ bringt das stärkste aller Gefühle auf die Kinobühne – und hinterlässt beim Zuschauer doch ungestillte Sehnsüchte.

A literary adaptation, in my view, shouldn’t be an imitation, but an interpretation. And a good interpretation, as any literature teacher or literary critic knows, is one that doesn’t cover a book, but uncovers it. For me, Wright’s film did that. The power of this movie isn’t merely in the fact that the director has willfully re-shaped Tolstoy’s classic according to his own bold, wacky conceit, but that in his very stylistic quirkiness he has actually brought us surprisingly close to the philosophical vision of the original work. For that even the most dedicated Tolstoy aficionados can be grateful. The Academy should have looked a little bit deeper.