Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

This weekend, Dottie and I watched the film “Anna Karenina,” adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s 19^th century novel. I’m not surprised that the Oscars ignored the movie though I am surprised that Hollywood made the film at all.

After all, it’s the story of how Anna, guided by her feelings, pursues romantic love (Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to do?) until it destroys her. She is married, she has a son, and, at the beginning of the story, is a respectable member of St. Petersburg society.

Then on a trip to Moscow to try to reconcile her sister-in-law to her philandering brother, Anna meets Count Vronsky who begins an aggressive pursuit. At first, she refuses his advances, but slowly he wears her down—not that she appeared to take much wearing down—and their affair begins.

The novel makes it clearer than the movie that not only were the two having an affair, they were flaunting their affair, cohabitating, entertaining guests in the summer house they rent together, and even having a child.

Anna’s husband, a senior government bureaucrat (and something of a stiff) at first refuses to believe there’s anything going on. Then he asks Anna to discontinue the affair. Finally, pushed to the limit with Anna’s and Vronsky’s  indiscretions, he files for divorce.

As a result, Anna can no longer go out into polite society. Having a tryst was marginally acceptable, but to act like… well, to act like most Hollywood actors and actresses was beyond the pale. Isolated from friends, treating her insomnia with morphine leading to an addiction, Anna even begins to push Vronsky away. She’s like a desperate animal trapped against a cliff with nowhere to go.

The movie ends with her suicide (sorry for the spoiler if you didn’t know the story), something that didn’t surprise me in the book or the movie. She had put herself in a position where there were only two choices. She needed to repent of her bad choices, quit Vronsky and return to her husband in an attempt to pick up the pieces or she needed to end it all. Incapable of the first, she chooses the second, whispering, “Forgive me,” to it’s not clear who just before the end.

Tolstoy knew that there is right and wrong and little decisions add up to a destiny. When doing wrong, the sooner we can make course corrections, the better. The older and the farther down a chosen path we get, the harder it is to change our ways. “Anna Karenina” serves as a harsh reminder of what can happen if we don’t. Which is why it seems a very un-Hollywood movie to make.