Anna Karenina

Wright has said he did not wish to make 'yet another period drama', and he's achieved this, has explored something new, but at an emotional cost.

It's far from a perfect film, but Anna Karenina should be praised for its attempt to reinvent the wheel of stuffy costume-clad Masterpiece Theater for the big screen.

The look is gorgeous, of course, but seldom has so much aestheticization served so much heartlessness.

So can we somehow make a bargain with the film world: no more Anna Kareninas? You're making idiots of yourselves.

Trying to one-up Tolstoy was always going to be a bad idea, though I wouldn't object to seeing a Bond movie, or Les Miserables, staged in the same way.

Joe Wright uses the theatre and has the actors taking part in a stage production which then moves out into the real world. I think that's done beautifully.

While even skilled filmmakers would have trouble adapting Tolstoy’s novel in a straightforward form, Wright attempts a book-to-stage-to-film approach and, for the first time in his career, stretched his considerable talent thin.

The machinery of the music box comes undone in our hands, but the light dancing on the little silver gears is still so beautiful and heartbreaking.

The characters, so beautifully drawn by Tolstoy, are severely truncated in the film, functioning as relatively impoverished figures.

Anna Karenina is a boldly constructed and beautiful film.