This was the first version of Anna Karenina that I saw and apart from the 'shaky camera' direction which seems to be in fashion these days it is a really good version.Kevin McKidd and Helen McCrory are excellent and give it their all in this tale of passion and love. It made me become a fan of both actors and seek out films with them in.All in all a good version, with the themes of the story, lust, love and passion coming through very strongly. I seem to remember this was shown in 3 or 4 parts over as many weeks and I could not wait to see the next part every week, a sign of good drama!Watch it and see if you agree.

This Masterpiece Theatre production gives life to Tolstoy vast and ambitious masterpiece. It's a formidable task considering that Tolstoy was often a deeply psychological writer and spent hours probing the souls of his characters. That being said, the cast in this adaptation do a marvelous job in conveying their character's profound and often misguided humanity.Tolstoy co-protagonists, Anna Karenina and Constantine Levin are both idealists searching for love and meaning. Helen McCrory is not an obvious choice for Anna but the character has suffered from being played by picture perfect actresses who have trouble conveying Anna's passion. Helen McCrory's is believable as a mature woman who is seemingly very comfortable in her skin and has the grace and power to make men fall easily in love with her.Douglas Hensall plays Levin with gentleness as a sensitive, conflicted man plagued by doubt and his own inadequacies.He romance with Kitty is sweet and understated. His Scottish accent, beard, and awkward manners lend to his rusticism. However, as with any adaptation of Anna Karenina, much of Levin struggles with his own conflicted personal morality and faith are left out.The best performance comes from Stephen Dillane as Anna's dour, principled husband. A man who believes in keeping his emotions in check, Dillane's Karenin is a man who's suffering his wife's betrayal and is conflicted between the desire to punish her and his love for her. In the novel Karenin is a homely man in his fifties, but here he is far handsomer and about 10 years younger which is helpful because it prevents viewers from believing that Anna deserts old, ugly husband simply because he is old and ugly.Also of note is Mark Strong as Anna's bon vivant brother, Stiva, who, as in the book, remains likable despite being irresponsible and faithless to his wife, Dolly. Paloma Baeza, Amanda Root and Kevin McKidd also turn in fine performances and Levin's sweetheart, Dolly and Anna's lover, respectively.The film's use hand-held cameras, quick cuts, and odd angles were at times interesting and at times, very distracting. Admittedly,it was nice to see a period film not shot in the very staid and static fashion of most period films. This production is full of movement: train chug by, people run upstairs, skirts billow, couples argue violently.It has been said that readers should take Anna Karenina as a "piece of life" and this adaptation has an accessibility and realism and lacks that daunting glossy "period film" sheen. These people are people who could live in our time or any time

Anna Karenina is one of the great novels of the nineteenth century that has inspired a great many adaptations for cinema or television. This most recent TV version (aired now in North America) is one too many. It is appallingly rudderless, maybe because it is increasingly more difficult to see a point in adding to the already high stack of versions. The acting lacks zest for the most part, the length or the treatment of this version does not do justice to the richness of the novel, and the sex scenes are so disingenuously artsy as to be laughable. More critically, the key characters of Anna and Vronsky are played by actors lacking both presence and chemistry. In my opinion, this version fares very poorly compared with the other TV miniseries, that of 1977 starring Nicola Pagett (Anna), Eric Porter (Karenin) and Stuart Wilson (Vronsky).

This new adaption of Anna Karenina was first shown on British TV in May 2000 as a four week mini series.Since the production is over four hours long,it is able to explore the main characters in detail.It doesn't just concentrate on Anna's(Helen McCrory)relationships with Karenin(Stephen Dillane) and Vronsky(Kevin McKidd),but also the relationships between Levin and Kitty and Oblonsky and Dolly. The film opens and closes with the character of Levin.Douglas Henshall is well cast as the idealistic Levin,haunted by his past.Paloma Baeza plays his wife Kitty as a pure and innocent girl who is also very kind and wise. Mark Strong is very convincing as the philandering Oblonsky and Stephen Dillane excellent as the faithful and dignified Karenin. The series was criticized in the UK for it's explicit love scenes.Personally I don't think they were that explicit.Also these scenes were necessary to tell the story in the twenty-first century. My only criticism would be that although Helen McCrory and Kevin McKidd's performances were very good,their characters seemed to lack chemistry. Overall this is an excellent production,which is well worth seeing.