Let's say, I was disappointed. Really disappointed.
First of all, why all the trickery? If you haven't seen it, the set-up of the first half, in particular, was stage set, with movable set walls and scenes in different parts of the city only separated by screens and movable props. I found it very difficult to forget I was watching a film and it very much distracted me from the story. What's wrong with halls and pavements for scenes of action? They work for everyone else, after all. I imagine the set-up is meant to convey the falseness of the social constructs of the contemporary era, in contrast to Anna's vividly beating heart, but to me it smacked of insecurity, like 'it wasn't meant to be better, it was meant to be different' or something. I imagine it's quite exposing to try and tell a story well and have the emotional impact of it fall flat, so maybe they were self-sabotaging.
I also felt the story presented a too-modern take on the situation, as Anna was overtly applauded for following her heart and society was presented as very mean indeed for not letting her play with them afterwards. Really, she should be a tragic, dangerous figure who destroys her husband, children and lover, before destroying herself, to say nothing of the injuries that she felt she would have done God and her eternal soul. Karenin speaks of this, but Anna does not, and Karenin's moralising is presented like nagging, not as a voice of the church and the contemporary moral structure. In this film adaptation, she is just sad because she can't have a divorce when she wants one and no-one will sit at her table. I know they need to sell tickets, but better that they'd had a little faith in their audience rather than dumbing it down into nothingness. Also, I found the jealousy unconvincing and her suicide anti-climatic (and how can that even be?)
The main flaw for me, the culmination of these various things, is that this film felt like a classic case of style over substance - at one point I found myself admiring the dresses, and I wonder, is that really what my mind should be on whilst watching a dramatisation of what is really, the novel of novels? There was no foreboding, no latent, concealed unhappiness. Où est la mélancolie? one might wonder, or где меланхолии? (Thanks Google Translate.) The beginning practically bounced along with life, contentment and industry, but everyone knows that happy, fulfilled people are not adulterers. Oblonsky was not 'opposite' enough, either, to fully demonstrate the gender hypocrisy, and Dolly was almost farcical in her distress, which is bizarre as Kelly MacDonald is normally such a safe bet.
The acting and characterisation were so weak also: Vronsky was a cream puff with little discernible personality, Keira/Anna was nervy and inconsistent, and Oblonsky was a very, very British (!) blustering fool. I would not leave anyone for any of them, as they were not real people. The brightest acting spot was Karenin, played quietly and steadily by Jude Law.
I was so disappointed by this film, which really has very little to do with Tolstoy or his story-telling, past the names, main plot points and places.
Sob. (I watched the 1985 TV version, with Jacqueline Bisset and Superman (look!), the other day, and that I found wholly engaging and a version I would recommend. Channel 4 in the UK also did an adaptation in 2000 with Helen McCrory which I remember being really good too. )
simplest of terms, to me Tolstoy is the greatest of writers and Anna Karenina is my favourite all time book. There is no equal for its breadth, scope, accurate portrayal of human behaviour and its influences and, most importantly, pure, simple wasted heartbreak, which branded itself into my conscientiousness from the first read. It's a triumph, and if I'm going to associate my work with anyone's, why not his? (There's a joke in there somewhere). In any case, at the most basic blogger level, I hoped the mention of Tolstoy might help the reader anticipate literary fiction and the odd short story, which is hopefully what this blog provides. 
There are, to date, only two books that have ever defeated me and kept me, wilfully or not, from their end: Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Tolstoy's War and Peace. At every attempt Moby Dick has aggressively bores me to tears with descriptions of sailing, the sea and 135 threateningly epic chapter heads that stretch out before you like a sentence, meaning that I have never got passed the first chapter even though I've had a copy since I was about 15. Also, I hated the one Melville story I ever managed to get through (Bartleby) and I can't help but feel (snobbish, I know) his credibility has been slightly undermined, through no fault of his own, by the now eternal association of Moby Dick with Starbucks. 'Nuff said. War and Peace, on the other hand, is meaty and substantial and arrogant enough to be 537 pages long and actually consist of 15 books and 2 epilogues, with a few extra notes, just in case we were still wondering, from Tolstoy at the end. When I picked it up that first time Tolstoy threw down the gauntlet and by the time I die I will have finished it, even if it is the act that actually kills me. Suffice to say, I've only got to page 459, the start of Book 5, thus far in my multiple readings. I guess if I was superstitious, finishing it wouldn't be something I'd want to hurry... Anyway, by reminding myself of Tolstoy every time I open my own blog, it reminds me that grandiose arrogance and timeless stories can live forever (a great incitement to labour) and also that, if an old man can sit for years at a time, freezing to death with a pencil and gaslight
in 19th Century Russia, then I should really be able to conjure something up, sat 
