The Kreutzer Sonata

A Tolstoy short Story based on the Beethoven Sonata, updated to modern-day LA, this is an interesting premise with some nice touches rather let down by poor camerawork.
It, being Tolstoy, is of course in story a beautifully structured and fascinating analysis of the slow-simmering and then exploding emotions of envy and jealousy (nicked by Proust for Swann’s Way, incidentally, and similar with the man-hanging-around-corners to the wonderful ‘Queen of Spades’). The Huston family put in decent performances, and the scene-ography is subtle enough to let us know our perma-smiling anti hero and his sensual, enigmatic wife.
The camera appears however to be operated by a drunk, cheaply bought and fittzling around the characters rather than let the largely well directed scenes speak for themselves. It is distracting and annoying. This film could have chosen to be a sharp, lean document, and could have gotten away with this. The at times painfully slow structure, where bits of the story are explained by a voiceover to the point of idiocy, makes it overlong and slow for this purpose.
The painfully bourgeois setting is deliberate, but also tremendously grating.
Overall, nearly very excellent, but the cheapness of the camerawork and uncertainty over the pace (i.e. it’s too slow) mean it is a rather galling slice of how the rich half live.