Search - The Last Station on DVD

The Last Station - Film Review

One More Option | USA | 02/20/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The film "The Last Station" focuses on the last few months of the novelist and writer Leo Tolstoy's family and social life. It stars Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as his wife Sophya, James McAvoy as Tolstoy's new personal secretary Valentin, Kerry Condon as Valentin's charming and aggressive love interest, and Paul Giamatti as the leader of a group of "Tolstoyans" who wish to widely promote Tolstoy's ideals.

The film is set in early 20th century Russia, before the harsh realities of the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917 and thereafter (Tolstoy died in 1910). It was a time in history when Socialism was still an untried idealized conceptual form of government, and Tolstoy in his final years became more "radical" in his political, religious, and social philosophies.

The film raises 2 universal questions: 1) What do you do when the love of your life is in conflict with your highest priority ideals? And how does your treatment or mistreatment of the people closest to you, who have loved and cared for you the most, reflect on the quality of your ideals?

~Spoilers Ahead ~

In the final months of Tolstoy's life, he abandoned his wife of 48 years, Sophya. Before Sophya and Leo married, Sophya knew of his many sexual escapades he shared with her in his diaries. She knew he had fathered a child with one of the servant girls in his household. Nevertheless, she loved him and married him, giving him 13 children, 5 of whom died in childhood. The movie implies the question: At what point does your life become more than a solitary pursuit? After how many years of good treatment and co-dependence with those close to you does your life necessarily and deservedly become considerate of more than just your own priorities? Where should your deference be?

In 2009, it was widely reported that a British couple, both 98 years old, divorced. When a friend of mine heard of the story, she said, "What was the point?" It's a fascinating question. When do we ever stop wanting to define ourselves, our relationships, and our boundaries?

James McAvoy's character Valentin is a young, romantic idealist who wishes to promote Tolstoy's ideals. He runs into a young woman named Masha, who is less interested in layers of idealism, moral laws, and controls, and is more interested in physical and emotional feelings and connections. She quickly disarms his protests by being sexually aggressive with him. His ideals lose some of their zeal and absolutism when confronted with Masha's ability to naturally please him.

The film parallels Valentin's young love story with Tolstoy's love story with Sophya. Valentin is given a rare view, at a young age, to watch "ideals" clash with "love." Valentin, living in the house with Tolstoy, is able to watch a "great man" who is leading a "revolutionary" movement. He's able to watch how Tolstoy's focus on "the greater good" appears to harm and betray his wife, whose ideals are in conflict with his.

The film implies that Sophya did more than cleaning house and raising children while Tolstoy wrote. She tempered his novels' dialogues and added exceptional advice to his female portrayals. She transcribed and edited his major novels. She was not simply his wife, she was a co-creator of his greatest artworks.

The film is based on a 1990 novel "The Last Station" by Jay Parini. The title refers to many things, including the fact that Tolstoy died at a train station, fleeing his wife and estate. The title also implies the question: How will your actions in the last station of your life define your legacy? What will your last station leave behind for your immediate social circle and your community in general?

The screenplay is tight, moving, and never circuitous. The direction is solid and never distracting. The actors are excellent. I've heard the most praise for Mirren and McAvoy, but I found Plummer's and Condon's performances to be equally excellent. Plummer is in top form, less affected than in his younger roles. The film is a perfect length and the roles are not drawn as too overwrought or too "good" vs. "evil." We see the conflicting ideals of each of the main characters and we can easily understand the warfare that develops when their strong boundaries don't wish to co-exist.

I was hesitant to give this film a "number of stars" rating. But I appreciate it when other reviewers place some measurable rating on the films they review. When trying to come up with a correct number, I asked myself: "What was wrong with this film?" And I couldn't think of anything.

It's difficult for viewers to leave this film feeling good. This is not a film with a "feel good" ending. It's a real story about complex people who in the end desperately didn't want the same things. There are no clear winners in the final act of Tolstoy's life's story. But over time, I'm glad the work of his whole life has shined brighter and more prominently than his final chapter."

A Magnificent Movie Experience

John F. Rooney | 02/21/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Last Station"--oh, what a great movie experience. It has superb acting, a fascinating story, stunning cinematography, and the evocation of a period in history. Leo Tolstoy, Russia's greatest novelist, espoused many ideas and spiritual principles in his later life which formed the Tolstoyan movement. Christopher Plummer is magnificent as Tolstoy in his last days, and Helen Mirren, is, as usual, truly memorable. A battle is going on in the film between Mirren as the Countess wife of Tolstoy versus Paul Giametti, at his nastiest, playing the head of the Tolstoyan movement. He wants the copyrights to the master's works to go to the Russian people, while she wants the rights to go to her and the family.
She hectors her husband not to give in to Giamatti and deny the family the income from his work. It's a titanic struggle among Plummer, Mirren, and Giamatti that forms the basis for the story. The Tolstoys have been married for forty-three years and have had a number of children. Even though Tolstoy dressed in peasant garb, they still lived a privileged life with many servants.
Giamatti gets a Tolstoy disciple, played with great skill and artistry by actor James McAvoy to become Tolstoy's secretary and spy on the wife. Celibacy is one of the guiding principles of the movement, but on the commune he quickly falls for a young woman and forgoes his vow. Mirren walks a thin line, avoiding shrewishness in her battle, and showing her true love for her husband. Their love scenes together show true chemistry. The rooster and hen scene is great fun.
One of the outstanding features of the movie is the way it photographically recreates life in the first decade of the twentieth century on a Russian country estate and the life and work of the many peasants who endured lives of quiet desperation in Czarist Russia. In every outdoor scene you see the serfs toiling in large numbers.
It's a love story in which a woman's struggles for family equity get entangled with the fanaticism of an ideology. The movie's title will become apparent at the end. It's an antidote to all of the action movies and drivel out there. What shines through in all the characters is their deep humanity and their depths of emotion. It's a superior film, very satisfying and enriching.
"

War and Peace

Keris Nine | 02/24/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you've read War and Peace and Anna Karenina or any other works by Tolstoy, the idea of a film about the great Russian author's fascinating latter years as he disavowed his earlier writings for deep religious principles and social reform is an intriguing prospect, but I'm sure there can't be too many others similarly thrilled by the notion.

It is a strange subject to make a film around, there's no denying that, and indeed The Last Station - based around the struggle over the publishing rights of his entire works between Tolstoy's favourite disciple Chertkov (who wants them to be given freely to the people) and the Countess Sofya (who believes they belong to the family and herself who have supported the Count over the years) - isn't the most dramatically thrilling of situations. To add variety to the constant back and forth battles, showdowns and shouting matches between Chertkov and the Countess over the terms of Tolstoy's will, there is a conventional romance thrown in between naïve new disciple Bulgakov and the rather more worldly Masha on Tolstoy's commune.

Despite the fact that nearly all the situations take place around him between the other protagonists, Tolstoy however rightly retains the strongest position in the film, a fact that can be attributed almost entirely to a convincing performance by Christopher Plummer. While performances are equally as good elsewhere from Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti and John Sessions (particularly Mirren), it's hard not to see them as indeed "performances" by well-known and respected actors, whereas Plummer completely inhabits his role and convinces as Tolstoy, putting real character behind the man's revolutionary ascetic, pacifistic ideals. While it never really explores these beliefs and sentiments in any great detail (go read Tolstoy's later works if you are interested, they are worthwhile and, ironically, out of copyright in English translation they can now all be downloaded for free from Gutenberg), it does go some way towards making The Last Station a little more meaningful and enjoyable as a film."

An intelligent and involving look at the last days of a grea

S. Curley | Charlottetown, PE, Canada | 02/23/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""War & Peace" and "Anna Karenina" are two of the longest and most famous novels in Russian literature (as of this writing, I'm about 800 pages into the first; only 400 to go), produced by author Count Leo Tolstoy ("Lev", literally, transliterated into English as Leo). In the 21st century, they're really the only things that most people are familiar with about him, but, apart from a raft of other (much shorter) fiction, Tolstoy, in the later decades of his, became a central figure in the global pacifist movement, a Christian anarchist philosopher par excellence who corresponded with a young Gandhi, and who was cited as the most influential pacifist in the world by American feminist Jane Addams in 1902. His death was news worldwide. "The Last Station", based on a novel of the same name by Jay Parini, depicts his final months, and the conflict between his wife and his acolytes over his literary legacy. Directed by Michael Hoffman, "The Last Station" is a quality period drama that should interest fans of the genre. Spoilers are discussed below.

The novel was written in an epistolary format, with a number of different narrators on a chapter-by-chapter basis: Tolstoy himself, his wife Countess Sofya Tolstoya, his daughter Sasha Tolstoya, his doctor Dushan Makovitsky, his ally Vladimir Chertkov, and his private secretary Valentin Bulgakov. The film telescopes things considerably, with the Tolstoys and Bulgakov the primary focus; the others are present, but as supporting characters. Bulgakov (James McAvoy; as in "The Last King of Scotland", playing the viewpoint character to other actors who earn the Oscar nominations; poor guy) is selected by Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) as the new secretary, as well as Chertkov's man in the Tolstoy residence, since he needs to keep an eye on the Countess. At stake is Tolstoy's copyrights, which his wife wants to pass to his heirs to sustain the family (they've a standing offer a million rubles for the whole set, which is nothing to turn down lightly), while Chertkov wants the whole body of work to enter the public domain, as a gift to the people of Russia (and the world). The Countess (Helen Mirren, who earned her fourth Oscar nomination for her dynamite work here) is very materially-minded, unlike Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer, who was finally delivered from the ranks of great actors passed for Oscar nominations with his role), who lives in a state of deepening spiritual conflict over the lavish lifestyle his wife desires.

The conflict between intellectual ideas and practice is at the heart of the film. Tolstoy himself admits that he is, in a lot of ways, not a very good Tolstoyan, mainly when it comes to his ideas about the value of chastity (having thirteen children, and quite a few past lovers). Bulgakov, young and idealistic, finds himself increasingly involved with Masha (Kerry Condon), a spirited woman at the Tolstoyan commune; and, in his capacity as secretary, he's at the centre of the tug-of-war between Sofya and Chertkov. Bulgakov finds himself increasingly drawn to the side of Sofya, who sees Tolstoy's work as the work of her life as well; anyone can sympathize with somoene who copied out "War & Peace" in longhand six times. Mirren invests her with quite a bit of relatability, as well showing her a truly spectacular drama queen (much more of one than any of the four real queens Mirren has played). She's well-matched with Plummer; their scenes together are the highlights of the film. McAvoy does what his role requires, and he and Condon make a believable couple, even if their more low-key characters are always in the Tolstoys' shadow. Also present is McAvoy's real-life wife Anne-Marie Duff (amusingly not playing his love interest, but Tolstoy's daughter Sasha). Giamatti and John Sessions (as the family doctor) provide able support.

The film is more direct than the novel in taking sides in the battle between Sofya and Chertkov, pronouncedly sympathizing with her, which is, I think, a somewhat indulgent view in many ways. It's quite true she invested a lot of her life in the work, but the film deals only glancingly with the social justice concerns at the heart of the Tolstoyan movement. The reality of Russia in 1910 was a population of tens of millions living in abject poverty and illiteracy (one of my favourite parts of the novel, not included here, was Tolstoy's speculation about what those millions could possibly think of a novelist, not being able to read, nor really having the time for such things), under the sway of a despotic Tsar, a corrupt government, and an indifferent ruling class, a class that Countess Tolstoya belonged to. The core dispute between Sofya and Chertkov was that Chertkov cared quite a bit about the plight of those millions, and Sofya not at all; Chertkov's great sin was being more interested in the world's grotesque social problems than keeping the Tolstoy family in their enormous mansion. Sympathetic as she might be at times, a bit more perspective might be advised there.

Recommended."