The Last Station movie review (2010)

"The Last Station" focuses on the last year of Count Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), a full-bearded Shakespearian figure presiding over a household of intrigues. The chief schemer is Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), his intense follower, who idealistically believes Tolstoy should leave his literary fortune to the Russian people. It's just the sort of idea that Tolstoy might seize upon in his utopian zeal. Sofya (Helen Mirren), on behalf of herself and her children, is livid.

Chertkov, the quasi-leader of Tolstoy's quasi-cult, hires a young man named Valentin (James McAvoy) to become the count's private secretary. In this capacity, he is to act as a double agent, observing moments between Leo and Sofya when Chertkov would not be welcome.

It might be hard for us to understand how seriously Tolstoy was taken at the time. To call him comparable in stature to Gandhi would not be an exaggeration, and indeed Gandhi adopted many of his ideas. Tolstoy in his 82nd year remained active and robust, but everyone knew his end might be approaching, and the Russian equivalent of paparazzi and gossips lurked in the neighborhood. Imagine Perez Hilton staking out J.D. Salinger.

Tolstoy was thought a great man and still is, but in a way his greatness distracts from how good he was as a writer. When I was young, the expression "reading War and Peace" was used as a synonym for idly wasting an immense chunk of time. Foolishly believing this, I read Dostoyevsky and Chekhov but not Tolstoy, and it was only when I came late to Anna Karenina that I realized he wrote page-turners. In Time magazine's compilation of 125 lists of the 10 greatest novels of all time, War and Peace and Anna Karenina placed first and third. (You didn't ask, but Madame Bovary was second; Lolita, fourth, and Huckleberry Finn, fifth.)

"The Last Station" has the look of a Merchant-Ivory film, with the pastoral setting, the dashing costumery, the meals taken on lawns. But did Merchant and Ivory ever deal with such a demonstrative family? If the British are known for suppressing their emotions, the Russians seem to bellow their whims. If a British woman in Merchant-Ivory land desires sex, she bestows a significant glance in the candlelight. Sofya clucks like a chicken to arouse old Leo's rooster.

The dramatic movement in the film takes place mostly within Valentin, who joins the household already an acolyte of Tolstoy. Young and handsome, he says he is celibate. Sofya has him pegged as gay, but Masha (Kerry Condon), a nubile Tolstoyian, pegs him otherwise. Valentin also takes note that Tolstoy, like many charismatic leaders, exempts himself from his own teachings. The 13 children provide a hint, and his private secretary cannot have avoided observing that although the count and countess fight over his will, a truce is observed at bedtime, and the enemies meet between the lines.

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