The BBC showed Doctor Zhivago this afternoon. The plot summary for it made me laugh out loud. It was the following, nothing more:
A doctor (Omar Sharif) falls in love with the mistress of a political opportunist.
It's not wrong: it is an accurate summary of the plot as far as it goes; but the bald, blunt reductiveness is absurd compared to the famous epic drama it is describing. It's like calling St. Peter's Basilica "a church in Rome" or Shakespeare "a well-known writer from the Midlands."
It got me thinking about doing the same - absurd summaries - to other classics. Here are some I thought of:
Anna Karenina
A married Russian noblewoman embarks on an affair with an army officer.