Anna Karenina

Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina” distills Tolstoy’s sprawling novel into a series of elegant, confined spaces that mirror Anna’s claustrophobic existence. Keira Knightley’s portrayal of Anna is a study in passionate despair, her affair with the dashing Aleksey Seydoux’s Vronsky a high-wire act of social defiance. Amid the stifling opulence of Russian high society, Anna’s love affair is a tempestuous ballet of desire and duty, set to a score of moral judgment and betrayal.