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Keira Knightley is 'Anna Karenina' in a new trailer for the film

Director Joe Wright's adaptation of Russian classic Anna Karenina' is scheduled for release Nov. 9.

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Focus Features/YouTube screenshot
Actor Aaron Johnson (l.) plays Count Vronsky, while Keira Knightley (r.) takes on the role of Anna Karenina.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

A trailer for director Joe Wright’s adaptation of “Anna Karenina” was released yesterday, showing some of Wright’ s treatment of the Russian classic by Leo Tolstoy.

Tolstoy’s novel follows the title heroine, whose full name is Princess Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, and who falls in love with Count Vronsky, a wealthy and dashing officer, while still married to Count Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a powerful member of the government who is 20 years her senior.

In Wright’s version, “Pride and Prejudice” star Keira Knightley will play Anna, while “Nowhere Boy” actor Aaron Johnson takes on the part of Vronsky and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” actor Jude Law will play Karenin.

Other actors appearing in the film include “Brave” star Kelly Macdonald as Anna’s sister-in-law Dolly, “Pride and Prejudice” actor Matthew Macfadyen as Dolly’s philandering husband Oblonsky, and Olivia Williams of “An Education” as Vronsky’s mother Countess Vronskaya.

The trailer opens with a quote from Tolstoy, “There are as many loves as there are hearts,” and shows the opulence of the film, with sumptuous costumes, elaborate balls, and some stage performances.

“I was eighteen when I got married,” Knightley says at the beginning of the trailer. “But it was not love.”

The trailer shows the betrayed Karenin’s anger at Anna, with Law asking, “Do you think I would let you have my son? You are depraved,” as well as her isolation as her aristocratic world is shocked by her affair.

The movie is scheduled to be released Nov. 9.

Check out the full trailer here:

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