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A new adaptation of Anna Karenina written by Tom Stoppard, directed by Joe Wright, starring Keira Knightley. We had to see it. We wanted to like it.

Much of the movie happens in a theatre. Proscenium, curtains, rigging, the works. Characters step off the stage, walk into the auditorium, talk backstage among the ropes. There’s a lot of choreography, as if we were watching a musical without the dancing.

Say Anna’s brother Stiva (Matthew MacFadyen) is leaving the office. He walks across the room without stopping or slowing down. In those few seconds someone takes off his coat, someone else puts another coat on him, he twirls, puts on his hat, someone opens the door and he walks out. It’s a lot of movement, and he’s only going to lunch.

The staging evokes the forms, rituals and artifice of high society in Imperial Russia. Hmmm, ingenious. They’re phonies, we get it. The ball where the dashing Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) ditches Kitty (Alicia Vikander) for Anna features some very odd dancing—a waltz crossed with ballet. Everything is stylized. And even if the location is obviously a stage set, the production design and costumes are sumptuous. (It’s jarring when the characters occasionally wind up on a real location. What, they forgot to bring their theatre?) Plus that train keeps turning up like a built-in spoiler.

Here’s the problem. The theatricality has a detaching effect on the viewer. We’re told that what we see isn’t real. So when Anna falls in love with Vronsky and eventually leaves her exalted husband (Jude Law) and beloved child to be with him, how are we supposed to feel? Ingenuity has trumped passion.

After a while the staging comes off as cute, and if there’s anything Anna Karenina is not, it’s cute. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) is too young to play Vronsky, and when their relationship starts cracking we’re not convinced of his pain. Keira Knightley seems to be playing the same character she played in Atonement and A Dangerous Method, although she doesn’t do her impression of the Alien from Alien.

On the plus side, Jude Law is an effective Karenin—virtuous, morally superior, smug yet sympathetic. This adaptation pays proper attention to the Kitty-Levin story, and Dohmnall Gleeson is compelling as the idealist Levin. (Confession: When we read Anna Karenina we skimmed through the parts about agriculture.) Their story isn’t the most passionate and exciting romance, but that’s the point: real love isn’t about flying sparks and grand gestures. It’s not that you can’t live without each other; but that you can live with each other.

We know some of you are reading the novel to prepare for the movie. Watch it anyway—it’s beautiful to look at, and it may point you to other ways of thinking about Anna Karenina.