DH and I saw this on Sunday, and I was bowled over. The budget for the costumes alone must have exceeded the budgets of most films! I loved the "theater within a theater" staging of the story -- very creative, with some visually stunning effects. It has been almost 30 years since I read the novel, so I can't comment on how closely the film tracked with the original. As with the novel, I felt like I had little sympathy for Anna and I never really found her love for Vronsky (and his for her) to be believable. The film made Karenin out to be quite sympathetic (kudos to Jude Law!), and like many reviewers, I liked the weight given to the Levin-Kitty love story, as it offered a more joyous, optimistic version of love.

There are a number of our actors in the film familiar to Pemberley audiences -- Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knigtley, of course, but also Ruth Wilson (almost unrecognizable as a blonde Princess Betsy) and many others whose faces I recognized but could not place.