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Poster for The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov

The greatness and glory, the loves and sins of the famed novel.

1958 · 2h 25m · TV-PG Drama, History
Directed by Richard Brooks

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Overview

Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
22%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Bold handling of crude unbridled passion, of violently conflicting ideas, and of earthy humor makes up The Brothers Karamazov.

Variety Staff, Variety
Rotten

Very uncertain in period and atmosphere, and saddled with some terrible performances.

Tom Milne, Time Out
Fresh

Conspicuous assets are the striking color photography and the musical score, both of which help a great deal in enhancing the drama's savage and soulful moods.

Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Rotten

While not as terrible as his subsequent adaptation of Lord Jim, this 1958 Hollywoodization of the Dostoyevsky novel by writer-director Richard Brooks is pretty grotesque all the same.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

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