"Anna Karenina," director Joe Wright's version of the Tolstoy novel and the third movie Wright has made with Keira Knightley, has already proven to be one of the most divisive and debated movies at Toronto.
A stylishly over-the-top re-imagining that sets much of the action on the stage of a huge and decaying theater, Wright's "Anna" is sumptuous and theatrical, and it dazzled some viewers while leaving others cold.
I fall on the thumbs-up side of that ledger, and I spoke to Knightley on Friday morning about the audacious concept, and her and Wright's feeling that it was worth taking the risk of falling flat on their faces.
I also mentioned that the movie's sex scenes, particularly a lengthy one between Knightley's Anna and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Vronsky, seemed as choreographed as the dance sequences. It turns out there's good reason for that: The sex scene, she said, began as a dance often staged by the film's brilliant Belgian-born choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
Here's a bit of the interview, with Knightley promising more of the scene on the eventual DVD:
I'll have more of the interview later, and more of "Anna Karenina" in Toronto.