The Last Station

City Paper Grade: B-

by Sam Adams

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Published: Feb 2, 2010

LAST CALL: Helen Mirren throws herself into the roll of Leo Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station. Too bad the rest of the film can't hold up. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

[ CItY PAPER GRADE:  B- ]

Although it feigns literary prestige, Michael Hoffman's chronicle of Leo Tolstoy's last days is little more than a gilded trifle. Adapting Jay Parini's novel, Hoffman (Soapdish) zeroes in on the battle between Tolstoy's wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), and his chief disciple, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti). In his latter years, Tolstoy turned away from writing the novels that remain the foundation of Russian literature and toward promoting a utopian philosophy incorporating elements of Christianity and anarchism. But for Hoffman, the substance of Tolstoy's beliefs is less important than the disposition of his works, which is to say that the movie preoccupies itself with material wealth at the period in Tolstoy's life when he had overtly rejected it. In the middle of the conflict between spouse and acolyte is Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), an enthusiastic but naïve Tolstoyan whom Chertkov assigns to serve as the author's assistant. Although Tolstoy preaches celibacy, Christopher Plummer's Tolstoy seems, even in his old age, to be far too sensual a creature to ever renounce his bodily urges. But Plummer's performance, terrifically enjoyable though it is, gives no hint of the passionate embrace of the peasant class that runs through Tolstoy's books, or what spurred him to give up writing altogether. The movie's failure, perhaps even inability, to take the Tolstoyans' beliefs seriously unbalances its central conflict. If the ideals to which he devotes himself are only so much talk, then Chertkov comes off as self-deluding at best and a fraud at worst, an oily manipulator whose attempts to persuade Tolstoy to assign his copyrights to the Russian people are impossible to take at face value. Although the muzhiks are much-discussed, they remain on the edges of the frame, mute witnesses to the fate of a great man. Mirren throws herself into her role with the force of Anna Karenina meeting an oncoming train, sucking the last drop from each hysterical fit and fainting spell. If only Hoffman showed as much zeal in pursuing his subject.

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