Anastasia Movie (20th Century Fox)

Box office A limited release of Anastasia in New York City on the weekend of November 14, 1997 grossed $120,541. The following week, the wide release of Anastasia in the United States made $14,242,807, which placed it as the second highest-grossing film

Description

In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II hosts a ball at the Catherine Palace to celebrate the Romanov tricentennial. At the ball, his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Angela Lansbury), gives the eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia (Kirsten Dunst/Lacey Chabert) a music box and a necklace reading “Together in Paris” to ease her favorite granddaughter’s loneliness while Marie is away in Paris. It plays their favorite lullaby. The ball is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Grigori Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd/Jim Cummings), a power-mad sorcerer who was banished from the court by the Tsar for treason. Rasputin reveals that he has sold his soul in exchange for a reliquary which has power to cast a curse on the Romanov family. Rasputin's curse sparks a catastrophic revolution, and the Romanovs are forced to flee from the palace. Only Marie and Anastasia are able to escape the siege alive, thanks to a young servant boy named Dimitri, who shows them a secret passageway in Anastasia's room. Rasputin's bat minion, Bartok (Hank Azaria), immediately alerts him of Anastasia's escape, and Rasputin confronts Marie and Anastasia on their way to the train station, only to fall through the ice and drown. At the train station, however, Anastasia becomes separated from Marie when she fails to board the moving train. She falls in the attempt and hits her head on the platform, losing almost all of her memories.

Ten years later, Russia is under communist rule. Marie, now living in Paris, is offering a monetary reward for the safe return of her granddaughter. Dimitri (John Cusack/Jonathan Dokuchitz), now a con man, and his friend and partner Vladimir (Kelsey Grammer) are searching for an Anastasia lookalike to present to Marie so that they can collect the reward and end their financial troubles. Elsewhere, Anastasia (Meg Ryan/Liz Callaway), now under the name "Anya," leaves the rural orphanage where she grew up. She turns down a job at a fish factory in favor of going to St. Petersburg after her necklace inspires her to seek out her family in Paris, accompanied by a stray puppy named Pooka. In St. Petersburg she encounters Dimitri and Vladimir, who are impressed by her resemblance to the Grand Duchess and trick her into believing that she may be the real Anastasia. In actuality, they just want to use her as the Anastasia lookalike for their scheme without having to share the reward money with her.

Bartok realizes that the two con men’s “fake” Anastasia is, in fact, the real Anastasia when Rasputin's previously dormant reliquary is revived. The reliquary transports Bartok to limbo, where Rasputin has existed as a animate corpse for the past ten years, unable to truly die as long as his soul, the reliquary, is still intact. Enraged to hear that Anastasia escaped the curse, Rasputin sends demonic spirits from the reliquary to kill her.

After two narrow escapes from Rasputin's demonic spirits during their travels, Anya, Dimitri, and Vladimir arrive in Paris to present Anya as Anastasia to Marie. But first, Anya is quizzed by Marie's first cousin, Sophie, on Anastasia's life, in order to insure that she is not simply a lookalike. Dimitri and Vladimir have taught Anya all the answers, but when Anya independently, though dimly, recalls Dimitri opening the secret passageway, he realizes that she is the real Grand Duchess. Sophie, convinced that Anya is the real Anastasia, then arranges for Anya to meet Marie after a Russian ballet, but Marie refuses to see her, having been tricked so many times before by lookalikes. Anya is horrified to find out that Dimitri wanted to trick Marie and has used her, and breaks contact with him. Dimitri, having fallen in love with Anya, manages to change Marie's mind by presenting her with Anastasia's music box, which he found abandoned in the palace after the siege. Marie remains guarded upon meeting Anya, but when Anya uses her necklace to wind the music box and sings the lullaby, the two women realize the truth and are reunited at long last.

Marie offers Dimitri the reward of ten million rubles. However, Dimitri, ashamed that he had planned to trick both Marie and Anya, refuses the money. Convinced that Anya's anger and his own lowly social class will keep them apart, Dimitri plans to return to Russia. Later, at a celebration being held in Anya’s honor, Marie informs Anya that Dimitri did not take the money, and promises her granddaughter that she will always be happy, even if Anastasia chooses a life with Dimitri. Unsure and disoriented, Anya wanders through a garden and onto the Pont Alexandre III, where she is trapped by Rasputin. Rasputin attacks her with the help of his reliquary. Dimitri returns to save her, but is injured and knocked unconscious. In the end, Anya manages to destroy Rasputin's reliquary by crushing it under her foot. His soul destroyed, Rasputin promptly turns to dust.

Afterwards, Dimitri and Anya reconcile, and Anya decides to choose a life with Dimitri over one as a grand duchess. They send a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie, promising that one day, they will all be together in Paris again. Anya and Dimitri share a kiss as they sail out of Paris with Pooka and a reformed Bartok.