ANA KARENINA

Missed this last year when it came out. Had a lot of friends, including movie actors you'd know, who thought it should have won a ton of Oscars. I finally caught it on cable tonight and wish I could have seen it on the big screen. It might have been literally too theatrical for some (so much so I thought it must have been made by Baz Lurhman, but it was directed by Joe Wright who did ATONEMENT, another great film I thought, and adapted by Tom Stoppard) but it was brilliantly so.

And it starred Keira Knightley, enough to make me want to see it, and she did not disappoint, as always. A brilliant performance, especially given the challenging balancing act of realism in the context of theatricality. The rest of the cast was terrific too, except, for my taste, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I liked him in SAVAGES, but it wasn't as demanding a role.

As Vronksy in ANA KARENINA he just wasn't able to match the same power and balancing act as Knightley and Jude Law and others in the cast. And though probably most women would disagree with me, I didn't buy him as someone Knightley's Ana could fall so helplessly and hopelessly in love with. Their love making scenes were subtle though theatrical and Knightley made her part work in ways few movie sex scenes ever capture, but she was doing all the work and Taylor-Johnson seemed out of his comfort zone.

But everything else about the film was refreshingly original—except the story of course—and well worth watching for any movie lover. Including for the surprise of another actor to watch, the Swedish born Alicia Vikander who showed a glimpse of the possibility for the kind of range Knightley has developed. Check it out if you haven't.