In a Variety “Actors on Actors” piece, Kenneth Branagh has called Keira Knightley‘s Anna Karenina performance “breathtaking…her effervescence of spirit is tangible and irresistible. Her whole being seems to blaze with a ferocity that is mesmerizing.
“This is Knightley as we have never seen her before so completely: a mature woman who is also impulsive, troubled, deceitful, sexual, passionate, heartbroken. Everything about her work here sears and scorches itself into the memory. This is an actress of subtlety and delicacy fulfilling her potential in a performance that comes from the depths. Like the novel itself, her work in the role is at once elegant and wild and compelling at every moment. A classic.”
