For much of its running time, Joe Wright's adaptation of Tolstoy's classic plays out in an old, crumbling theatre. From the moment that the curtains part to tell the story of Anna (Kiera Knightley) and her impetuous, tragic romance with the young Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the audience is plunged into a world in which the artifice is brought to the fore. Sets are moved around on camera, extras change from bureaucrats to sellers and merchants in a few well-choreographed movements, and Wright's roaming camera glides around the interior of the theatre, moving from one scene before alighting on a totally different one that occupies the same space.
