Anna Karenina (2012): Film vs Book

About the film

A stage-like new version of the Russian story, with sets that change before your eyes.

How close is it to the book?

It is staged as if in a theatre, which turns the novel's realism into a bold visual idea and gives the film a very different feel.

Read or watch first?

The book is an immersive novel with many more people and places.

What the book gives you

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

A rich, absorbing story with characters so real you feel you have met them. Its portrait of love and daily life in old Russia is vivid, and the story stays with you.

Who will like it: Readers who love big, immersive novels about love, family and society.