MovieChat Forums > Anna Karenina (2001) Discussion > Questions? - possible spoiler

Questions? - possible spoiler

posted 16 years ago by marzmello
8 replies | jump to latest

Just started watching this and love it so far. What a great cast. Besides Anna, I especially like Stephen Dillane and Mark Strong in their respective roles. Is this pretty accurate to the book ?

I'm asking because I felt Karenin came off rather sympathetic here. Wondering if he was as written in the book.(He forgave her when she was sick. He tried to patch things up and even allowed Vronsky access to Anna. He consented to a divorce when she got well.) I thought Anna was the more unreasonable of the two.

Btw, I never understood why she rejected his offer of a divorce (he seemed resigned to it), saying she didn't want him to give up everything he'd work for. What did she mean by that.

[–] ZinkTheMink 16 years ago

...portrayed as someone who has an inability to express his emotions and so comes across as a very cold fish - I don't believe he is meant to be seen as a bad person. Therefore the reader/viewer has some sympathy for him, but Anna is a wildly emotional woman and feels both suffocated and repulsed by her dry, pedantic husband. I felt Stephen Dillane played him very well.

"They don't make straitjackets like they used to.... I should know"

[–] CoraJack 16 years ago

The book must be very different from the movie. I'm halfway through (it's an extremely sloooow read) and Karenin is demanding a divorce and is going to take their son away from Anna; as was the "law" in Russia at the time. I guess I'll have to finish the book and then try to find this old film and compare.

To me, Karenin is not a sympathetic character at all. He works constantly and was never there for his family. I mean, it's one thing to work hard to support a family but quite another not to ever eat dinner at home and basically ignore spouse and child.

[–] KatharineFanatic 15 years ago

I think Karenin is very sympathetic. He is fulfilling his duties as a husband and hopes that will make Anna happy, but because they have different love languages, she finds their marriage passionless and without emotional closeness. Anna is a very physical woman, whereas Alexei is an intellectual man who has been taught restraint and duty above all else. It does not mean he doesn't love her (why else would he "hate" her so much when she betrays him? displaced love turns into hatred), only that she doesn't realize that his means of showing her love is to take good care of her, support her, make certain she is well-established and welcome in society. They merely are incapable of understanding one another, and I find that very sad.

[–] relish59 15 years ago

Agreed, I found Karenin to be sympathetic in the book as well...at least after the baby is born. As the story progresses his greatest weakness seems to be allowing Countess Lydia to control him.

I vaguely remember Anna discussing in the book why she did not originally want a divorce but can't remember why.

As for accuracy, the movie seemed to follow the book pretty literally. Other than certain parts being left out, most of the scenes and dialogue are directly from Tolstoy. If you liked the movie I'd definitely recommend reading the book (I did audiobook!) My favorite was Levin's internal dialogue on the ideal agrarian life and his struggles with faith.

[–] KatharineFanatic 15 years ago

I really want to read the book, but it seems popular this summer! I'm on a holds list for it at the library, which is rather unfathomable for a classic. I have heard about how fond Karenin becomes of the baby, which I think is terribly sweet. One of my favorite moments in the miniseries is when he is sitting there with the baby, looking at it rather sweetly. Karenin was a good man.

In the movie Anna initially doesn't want a divorce because she would be forced to relinquish all her rights to her son.

[–] outsideartist 12 years ago

In the book, Karenin never grants Anna a divorce and it is that, along with her 'Morphia' addiction that sends her over the edge.
Karenin seemed to me to be a pampered mamma's boy who wanted to control Anna et al, but didn't have the street smarts to do so. He was basically nice, but he just didn't get what was wrong with Anna and he did not care to find out.
Not that Anna and Vronsky were such moral pillars. To choose a man over your own SON? What a selfish bitch!

[–] fette_henne 12 years ago

I think she didn´t really choose Vronsky over her son, she was still hoping to get him back somehow...and I think this is her greatest despair: paying one love with the loss of another. What choice would she have had if she wanted to live a life of a loving woman and not just a dutiful spouse at that time? I mean, she was still young and full of life and love and yet confined to the role of a mother and housewife with an unfortunately pretty loveless man. Or at least a man who didn´t show his love much.
Karenin doesn´t strike me as bad, just very rational and dry to the bone. A total mismatch for Anna.
Maybe he didn´t care so much about what was wrong with her in the end because she had hurt him so much and on so many occasions...

[–] cluciano63 11 years ago

If they divorced, his career would have been ruined, or at least in jeopardy as it was still a great scandal. He would either have to publicly accuse her in court, or set up a fake affair of own.

I do not think he was a bad man...weak, in certain ways, especially as to that woman he let take over his life. He was just very straight and believed seriously in his wedding vows. I think it was kind of ridiculous, considering the era, that she ever thought she could just take her son and go off with her lover.