ANNA KARENINA Review

There's something woefully wrong with "Anna Karenina," and I refer to both the title character who's a distressful mess of a woman, but I also refer to the movie in which she stars. I've heard of style over substance, and I've heard that's what Joe Wright's latest feature falls victim to. But it's much more than that; it's style over no substance. There's no holding this exercise in decadence together other than the decadence on display in itself. This is the third time Wright has used Keira Knightley as his muse ("Pride & Prejudice," "Atonement"), and as much as I wanted another collaboration between this directorial master and the actress to strike gold, this is not the case. She plays dress-up in beautiful gowns playing to the part, the ill-fated Anna Karenina, but there's nothing beyond the beauty she emanates.

All the world's a stage, and she is but a player in the drama. Wright boldly directs his latest period drama (after the welcomed departure of last year's "Hanna") as a stage play within a movie. The action opens upon a stage, the camera moving into the set with all the backstage fixings and characters walking briskly past operating ropes and pulleys. The camera work simultaneously pulls us into 19th century Imperial Russia and keeps us once-removed from the action. The aesthetic is a fun diversion to start, but ultimately begins to deconstruct. Scenes still take place outside and look painterly but don't include the stage. When characters appear within the stage and in the audience area with all the seats removed as opposed to when entire scenes are detached from this stage, it all become random and inconsequential.

There are several moments where backdrop characters freeze to become an astonishing tableau upon the stage. This works to especially great effect when Anna engages in a dance of seduction with the younger count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). But again, it more announces the panache of Wright as a director but fails to engage us further in Anna's plight. As the 900-page Leo Tolstoy novel from which this is adapted -- and has been adapted plenty of times before -- tells us, Anna takes a trip to visit relatives and gets enraptured by Vronsky. She's an upper-class wife married to minster Karenin (Jude Law), but the only passion left for their marriage is displaced in a love for their young son. To fall so desperately in love with another man is despicable in the eyes of high society St. Petersberg and Moscow, and yet Anna feels she can flaunt such adultery without the world watching.

Coming from the perspective of a modern day audience, of course we sympathize with Anna. Why shouldn't she able to love who she wants? But at the same time, Anna is so unruly with her desire that she turns to downright recklessness. Her husband learns of the affair, and he offers forgiveness as long as she keep it secret; that way society won't punish her. She refuses, and society sees her punishment in full. When our sympathies begin to shift, that's when "Anna Karenina" really starts to fail. Silly, Anna, passion is temporary.

Whether it's the acting or a stiff screenplay from Tom Stoppard ("Shakespeare in Love"), something about the film is bloodless, lifeless and worst of all -- passionless. When Anna feels so powerfully about her affair with Vronsky, we should feel that level of emotion. Meanwhile, there's a third important character in play. A landowner named Levin (Domhnall Gleeson) who hopes to marry Kitty (Alicia Vikander), but she has a crush on Vronsky before he's otherwise occupied. Levin and Kitty end up happily-ever-after while Anna, well, you know. Is this version of "Anna Karenina" a tale about following undying love, or a morality tale about responsibility and duty? The confusion is crippling to the film and slams Wright's latest as a glorious miscalculation.

HANNA Review

"Hanna" (2011)

Here's a film that easily could've fallen flat on its face. Director Joe Wright--who's best known for his dramatic period pieces such as "Pride and Prejudice" and Best Picture nominee "Atonement"--taking on the action genre for the first time with a young star at its center. The trailer made it look weird, like it might not pan out into something successful. It being weird remains true, but it also is a successful triumph for the director. It's very much like nothing you've seen before, the most audacious piece of cinema you'll find in theaters as of late, and it's brilliant. Maybe a bold claim, but here are some reasons to back it up.

1. It's an ingenious mash-up
Joe Wright provides us a superb combination of genres. It's an action thriller, art house fare and a twisted fairy tale fantasy all in one. Again, something that could've fallen flat on its face, but Wright and his writers--David Farr, Joe Penhall and Seth Lochhead--breathe life into a titillating premise in strange and perversely delightful ways. While holding true to Hollywood tropes of a chase thriller, Wright also breaks them down re-serving them up in unexpected and unorthodox ways.

2. There's Saoirse Ronan
This young actress who captivated us with her eyes alone in "Atonement" leading the way through the turbulent waves of emotion holds her own again up against A-list actors. Saoirse Ronan is phenomenal playing the fierce miniature warrior Hanna--just 16 years old--who's out to save her own skin. Growing up in the woods with her father, Erik (Eric Bana), she learned to fight, kill and protect herself against danger. We're introduced to her just as she has shot an arrow into a giant deer. "I just missed your heart," she whispers to the dying creature in her soft German accent.

Hanna is a mystery to us, her origins unclear even to herself. Her father used to be a covert agent, and now he knows something that makes him a wanted man in the eyes of one CIA officer, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). This woman also wants Hanna. With an albino look and quick intellect, Ronan as Hanna captivates us all over again just as she did back in 2007.

3. The action looks good and has purpose
Taking note from "Run Lola Run," Hanna partakes in a lot of fleeing and escaping given her desperate circumstances. This is going to lead to a lot of action, and not only that but action that matters. In an interview, Wright expressed his worries about directing the action sequences in the film. An unnecessary worry because the action is swift, enthralling and exquisitely shot. The entire film is visually sumptuous with stylish flourishes that heighten the already crisp and proficient filmmaking. There is one scene where Erik is tailed, which is entirely one long shot reminiscent of that infamous shot from "Atonement"--it works wonders here, too.

All the pieces of action are creative, well-implemented and are set to an electrically charged score from the Chemical Brothers. Thanks to the music, a whole new feel emerges such as when Hanna breaks out of the concrete CIA facility set to a thumping beat and flashing strobe lights. There's purpose to Hanna's plight in these moments of excitement and suspense, and through them the film even finds instances of quirky wit and poetic beauty.

4. It's both sinister and human
Cate Blanchett plays Marissa as cold and soulless, and it fits. With a severe look, sharp business attire, devilish red hair and painfully good dental hygiene, she is a clear cut villain in the story. She hires a dastardly man to help her seek out Hanna. This odd-looking man whistles what sounds like a children's nursery rhyme, but he does so in such repetition that it turns dark and menacing.

Against all this sinister energy pursuing Hanna is the humanity found in an eclectic caravanning British family she comes across during her journey. Headed by the lovely Olivia Williams, the family consists of a young girl around the same age as Hanna named Sophie (Jessica Barden). She's the first girl her age Hanna has met, and she begins to learn what it's really like to be a young carefree girl and to have a friend. This moment of grounding Hanna's life in reality really makes us feel for her; we feel bad that no matter what she does, she'll be forced back into life as a fugitive.

5. It's a Grimm fairy tale
What's best about Joe Wright's "Hanna" is how it wraps itself up as a Grimm fairy tale. Hanna's final destination takes her to meet an elder man in what looks like a shack inspired by a gingerbread house, maybe Hansel and Gretel. It's in the middle of some bizarre abandoned amusement park clouded in mist. And when Hanna and Marissa finally come face to face, Marissa emerges from the mouth of a giant wolf head as if she herself were the big bad wolf and Hanna, little red riding hood. Take that, Catherine Hardwicke.