YMMV / Anna Karenina

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The 2012 film portrays Karenin (played by Jude Law) as a much more likeable character than in the other adaptations, while Anna and Count Vronsky are portrayed as selfish and self-centred characters (not that the film shows them without sympathy). This was done after years of Karenin being presented as a villain in most movies, when in the book he's clearly portrayed as firm but fair.
• Angst? What Angst?: Stepan Akedyevich, at the end. Two months after his sister has committed suicide, and he greets her lover, the man who arguably caused her suicide, with complete calm, like an old friend and a war hero, and a smile on his face.
• Award Snub: Keira Knightley not being nominated for Best Actress for the 2012 film.
• Awesome Music: The 2012 film has a wonderful soundtrack, composed by Dario Marianelli.
• Broken Base: Many people are unsure of whom we should be rooting for. Some read the book as teens loving Anna and Vronsky as true lovers and finding the Kitty and Levin subplot boring; however, those same readers will go back later in life and realise that Anna makes terrible choices, never thinking it would affect her until too late, while Kitty and Levin are seen as an excellent example to relate to. In fact, some fans, even while liking Anna, argue that while she was a victim of her design she does cause all these problems for herself and didn't realise the truth of her actions until it was too late.
• Designated Villain: Karenin, in most of the movies, is presented as a horrible man that is serious and refuses to divorce Anna, meaning she's shunned by society. However, in the book his worst moments are described by Anna herself; he might come off as cold but there are several moments that show he's compassionate and probably would have accepted Anna's affair if she had kept it private.
• Ho Yay: It's stated pretty baldly that Kitty has a crush on Anna in the earlier part of the book.
• It Was His Sled: At least in Russia, everyone knows that at the end, Anna throws herself under a train, even those who never read the book.
• Narm:
  • The love scene of the 2012 film is kinda over the top, but that's a perfectly valid trope. Then a few shots show they're still wearing their clothes. Yet writhing like eels. What.
  • Anna french kissing Vronsky in the 2012 film. She licks his lips... and then licks Aaron Taylor-Johnson's rather unimpressive mustache.
  • Tolstoy deliberately invokes this in the scene where Karenin finally snaps and admits his "thuffering". If not for that moment of Angrish, Anna might have felt remorse; as it is, she can barely keep from laughing, and loses what little respect she had for him.
• Questionable Casting: Several reviews for the 2012 film criticized Aaron Taylor-Johnson's portrayal of Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, noting that he seemed out of place in comparison to Keira Knightley and Jude Law.
• Retroactive Recognition: For the 2012 Joe Wright movie, Domhnall Gleeson, Cara Delevingne, Bill Skarsgård, and Alicia Vikander all broke out as actors following the films' release. It is one of Vikander's first English-speaking roles.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The death of Nikolai Levin. Tolstoy based it heavily off of a personal experience that deeply affected him, and it shows.
  • Then there's the little matter of the title character's fate...
• Unintentional Period Piece: As Alexander Mitta had pointed out, back then a suicide by train was as exotic as today jumping into a space rocket's exhaust would be.

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