Out of Frame: The Last Station
At the end of his life, Russian author Leo Tolstoy (played here by an impressively bewhiskered Christopher Plummer) was a huge celebrity in his native land and inspired the fervent dedication of a group who followed his philosophies and teachings, calling themselves Tolstoyans. As portrayed in director Michael Hoffman's The Last Station, one gets the sense of the group — those that settled on a plot of land near Tolstoy's own home, anyway — as an early hippie commune. Minus the sex and drugs of course, both of which were frowned upon by Tolstoyan doctrine.
As a period biopic, Hoffman's film is rather sedate and ordinary. While well-crafted, with an elegant visual sense and careful attention to period detail, it too often falls victim to its own melodrama — particularly as it drops the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone of its early scenes.
This early portion of the film focuses primarily on Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), a young writer who applies to become Tolstoy's personal secretary, getting the job after an awkward interview with a close adviser of Tolstoy, and one of the leaders of the Tolstoyan movement, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti). Valentin is a ball of nerves in this stage of the movie — his interview, his first meetings with Tolstoy, his assimilation into the commune — fidgety, uncomfortable, and given to fits of sneezing whenever overcome by his anxieties, an idiosyncrasy played fairly effectively for laughs.
McAvoy here plays a role that runs parallel to his turn in another "Last" movie, the Idi Amin biopic The Last King of Scotland, in which he plays an unlikely aide to the Ugandan dictator. As in that film, he takes his role as confidante with some trepidation at the start, before becoming a vital and vocal member of the mentor's inner circle. In both films, he essentially plays a fictionalized lead role in the story of a real man far more important than his own character.
The Last Station does a great deal of skipping around in tone and in focus. While it's clear that Tolstoy himself is going to be a supporting player from the start, the movie really has two leads, who each have their own often intersecting stories. One is Valentin, who, a the movie goes on, begins to realize the differences between Tolstoy the man, and Tolstoyanism the movement, falling in love with a young woman at the commune and engaging in acts of love that meet with the disapproval of the chaste locals. But perhaps even more than Valentin, this movie is really about the author's wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), a passionate woman with a penchant for dramatic histrionics equal in strength to the stormy love she holds for her somewhat difficult husband.
Here we come to the real reason to purchase your ticket to The Last Station, despite its weaknesses: Mirren's amazing performance as Tolstoy's wife. Richly deserving of every accolade she has received this awards season, Mirren nails the role, which demands of her the kind of stately grace she displayed in The Queen, as well as a fiery, crazed abandon as she fights with her husband over how she feels he has withdrawn from their marriage, and with his handlers over their intention to have him sign over all of his literary works to the public domain, leaving his family with nothing but the existing estate.
All of the performances, in fact, are universally stellar, making this not unlike last year's Doubt — a solid, if otherwise unremarkable film that provides a playground for performers of prodigious talents.
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View the trailer.
Directed by Michael Hoffman
Written by Michael Hoffman, from the novel by Jay Parini
Starring Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti
Running time: 112 minutes.
Rated R for a scene of sexuality/nudity.
Opens today at Bethesda Row and E Street.