Arizona Reporter - Movie Reviews - 02/12
THE LAST STATION
Sony Pictures Classics
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
Directed by: Michael Hoffman
Written By: Michael Hoffman, from Jay Parini’s novel
Cast: Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy
Screened at: Sony, NYC, 12/1/09
Opens: December 4, 2009
Bear with me because this is not a digression…Liberals want money to be distributed more equitably and will often support tax increases on the rich, with revenue diverted to programs that will help the poor or the community as a whole. Socialists are liberals with a vengeance: the most radical want more than simply government takeover of the means of production, but rather a redistribution of income to all according to need. There are different kinds of socialists. One group, the well-to-do, like to talk a good game because socialism is fashionable, but they would be horrified to lose more than a pittance. Another are the poor, those who have nothing to fear from a redistribution since they do not have money or land in the first place. The third group, the true believers, do indeed possess wealth but have demonstrated with action their willingness to give it up to “the community,” if not while they’re alive, at least when they are dead and have willed their estate to all. Lev Tolstoy was in the third group, the ones with the integrity, but wait: there are others who are true believers but will use force of will if not of guns to get that money into mass circulation. Those are the ones who became the dreaded communist leaders like Stalin, Lenin, and Mao. “The Last Station” may not be primarily a political movie, but politics is the thrust that motivates all the players, even while the Michael Hoffman’s film can be sold to the public better as a love story—which it is as well.
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And it’s a love story cum politics that boasts one tour de force performance (what else do we expect from Helen Mirren?) and fine performances indeed from Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti, and James McAvoy, all playing political roles during the final year of Tolstoy’s life. The title of the movie has a double meaning: that of Tolstoy’s exit from the world and that of the railway station to which he had traveled as though emulating the exodus of animals who, somehow aware that they are on the way out, go off into the woods to pass away.
With an assist from Jay Parini’s novel (available from Amazon for $10.20 but not yet on Kindle) and live advice from some of Tolstoy’s descendants, writer-director Hoffman takes advantage of some lovely settings in Leipzig and some smaller towns in Germany to stand in for Russian locales. The conflicts are many. Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is in conflict with himself between his vow of poverty and his extreme wealth. He has taken a vow of celibacy, not a great sacrifice considering his advancing age and his fathering of thirteen children with his wife of forty-eight years, Sofya (Helen Mirren). He is in conflict with his wife, even evoking a love-hate relationship with her, because he is considering a testament that would grant his copyright and attendant money to “War and Peace,” “Anna Karenina” and other novels to the Russian people rather than to his own large family. Sofya is likewise bitterly opposed to the manipulations of Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), Tolstoy’s best friend, a true believer who puts enormous pressure on the novelist to re-write his will so that the Russian people will have the wealth from the copyright.
To further his aims, Chertkov hires a young secretary for Tolstoy, the naďve Valentin (James McAvoy), with instructions to report back on all the people who visit the great man and who might persuade him to rejoin the Church and give up his socialist ideals. For his part, Valentin, having taken a vow of celibacy (at his age!), finds it most difficult to keep that vow, given the seductions of Masha (Kerry Condon), who works on the collective that Tolstoy has fashioned from his land.
Some critics have praised the story but have had problems with its telling. The film has even been compared (gasp) to Masterpiece Theater, a TV series that has often presented classics with a stultifying lack of drama. This appears not to be at issue here, as Helen Mirren in particular displays her talent for shifting from blissful affection for her husband to the emotions of an enraged harridan, one who’d appear to have no problem shooting the influential Chertkov just as she has put a few bullets in the man’s picture which hangs on the wall at her husband’s insistence. She has already done more to boost her husband’s career, having copied “War and Peace” in longhand, six times over. If her attempt at suicide by drowning is not dramatic enough for viewers, consider the credible performance she delivers on Tolstoy’s deathbed. All is in the service of paraphrasing the old saw about women by announcing perhaps the principal theme, “Love: can’t live with it, can’t do without it.”
THE LAST STATION (Sony Pictures Classics)
Unrated. 112 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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