How far behind am I on movie reviews? I saw The Last Station around Valentine’s Day.
sigh
Anyway, this was a surprisingly good Valentine’s day film. Surprising because it’s about the last days of Leo Tolstoy and why on earth should a film about the end of Tolstoy’s life be a good Valentine’s day film?
It is.
It’s a well acted, well written, and deservedly complicated story of personal love, public personae and the legacy of one of the greatest writers the world has ever known.
Told from the perspective of Valentin Bulgakov, Tolstoy’s personal secretary for the end of his life, The Last Station examines the tumultuous relationship between Tolstoy and his wife, as well as the demands placed on the writer by his followers in the Tolstoyan movement. Tolstoy, played brilliantly by Christopher Plummer, is Pressured from both sides about the ownership of his works after his death. His wife, played by the amazing Helen Mirren, believes the works are rightfully hers and the Tolstoyans, led by Chertkov (the always excellent Paul Giamatti) want them to be placed in the public domain. Between that primary strife and the strain trying to balance to the end the realities of being Leo Tolstoy (a noble, wealthy, sexual man) versus the tenets of his own movement (notably abstinence, and the denouncement of material wealth,) Tolstoy’s life was a drama to the very last. It’s told beautifully here.
Well worth your time.
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