Anna Karenina
Focus Features | Release Date: November 16, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 30, 2012
That storytelling, however, is uneven, ranging from something approaching tedium to moments that are downright wonderful (such as the sweetest of scenes, involving two young lovers -- played by and Alicia Vikander and Domhnall Gleeson -- and a stack of children's blocks). Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 15, 2012
The film's structure is so boldly conceived it seems unfair to focus on flaws. But the central problem is undeniable: There is no chemistry whatsoever between the leads. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 9, 2012
The Wright/Stoppard Anna Karenina is not a total success, but it's a bold and creative response to the novel. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanNov 29, 2012
The arc of the 800-page novel, crammed into 130 minutes, becomes a line as flat as the heart monitor of a dead patient. A story that ought to possess the mad grandeur of an opera acquires the tedious regularity of soap opera. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesNov 28, 2012
There's no denying the dazzling effect, but a fireworks sequence midfilm only underscores the sad fact that there's no lasting illumination here, only the fast-burn spitzing of bang snaps. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 15, 2012
In the end Anna Karenina lets you down - visually stunning, emotionally overwrought, beautifully acted, but not quite right. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 6, 2012
Dazzlingly designed and staged in a theatrical setting so as to suggest that the characters are enacting assigned roles in life, this tight and pacy telling of a 900 page-plus novel touches a number of its important bases but lacks emotional depth, moral resonance and the simple ability to allow its rich characters to experience and drink deeply of life. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 16, 2012
One of the many, many things wrong with Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley as literature's most famous adulteress – take that, Emma Bovary! – is that one never feels the love. It's a conceit in search of a movie. It could just as easily have been titled "Décor." Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 15, 2012
This latest iteration of the Tolstoy classic was clearly the product of audacious thinking, stylishly applied. Still, the thinking was as wrongheaded as it was hollow-hearted. Yet another elaborate production chases its audience away. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichNov 13, 2012
The more the visual ephemera piles up, the more the emotional thrust of the story gets buried beneath all the monotonous pageantry. (Anna's many tête-à-têtes with her two lovers - especially a should-be-dizzying dance-seduction scene - are frigid pomp without any real heat.) Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 12, 2012
Every unhappy movie is unhappy in its own way, and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina is as boldly original a miscalculation as any you're likely to see. Read full review
40
Total FilmNeil SmithSep 3, 2012
Pimped, primped and dressed to the nines, Joe Wright's Tols-toy story looks the business. Like a disappointing Christmas present, though, the pleasure quickly evaporates once you remove the shiny paper. Read full review
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