Nothing makes a classic love story more obsolete than treating adultery as a tragedy.
Not in this day and age. Sophie's not about to make us forget the really outstanding Annas of the past including Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh. Way back when flowery dialogue still made some sense. Even if he was trying to paint an unflattering picture of the frivolous Russian aristocracy being ripe for the Communist Revolution a few years later. Obviously Czarist Russia suffered from an acute shortage of licensed marriage counselors.