The Last Station (2009): One of Mirren's Best

I had the notion that The Last Station was a good movie, but probably a downer, about the last days and eventual death of Leo Tolstoy; and so I resisted seeing it when it was in wide release, as well as for several months this year, while the Blu-ray disk sat next to my TV, patiently, unassumingly waiting, waiting. Well, I was wrong. The Last Station is an engrossing drama, well written, directed and photographed, with first rate actors, including Christopher Plummer, James McAvoy and Paul Giamotti, and a brilliant performance by Helen Mirren. And I didn’t find it at all depressing.

The story is taken from real life, and, as far as I can tell, pretty accurately depicts the passionate love and irreconcilable conflicts between Leo and Sofya Tolstoy in the master writer’s final days. It’s an interesting story, raising some interesting issues, but the reason to see this film can be described in two words: Helen Mirren.

Mirren is a prolific actress, and I’ve seen her in a bunch of excellent performances, from her detective series, Prime Suspect, to a string of interesting films like Last Orders and Gosford Park (both 2001), culminating in The Queen (2006) for which she won an Academy Award as best actress. Throughout, one of her great qualities has been the ability to express a wide range of emotion – grief, resolve, affront, sympathy, whatever - through a steely veneer of British reserve. As Sofya Tolstoy, trying to save her marriage and contend with a cabal hostile to her most basic desires, Mirren is able to muster such noble reserve through great force of will, but only sometimes. Other times, her fears and passions overwhelm all constraints and burst force angrily and even hysterically. It is an incredible, heartrending, appropriately melodramatic performance. (I saw Mirren like this only once before: in her electrifying performance as Alice in the Broadway production of Strindberg’s Dance of Death opposite Ian McKellen in 2001, but that was live theater.)

It is 1910, and 82 year old Leo Tolstoy (Plummer), the world’s greatest living writer, is living on his country estate. In his later years, he has written extensively about the need for moral and economic reform, pacifism, non-violence and Christian love. A cadre of devotees and sycophants surround him, calling themselves Tolstoyans. The Tolstoyans, lead by Vladimir Chertkov (Giamotti), believe they are the vanguard of a utopian movement, and want Tolstoy, their prophet, to bequeath all future royalties from his writings to “the people” (i.e. the Tolstoyans). Tolstoy is sympathetic, much to the chagrin of his wife of 48 years, Sofya (Mirren), who has born him thirteen children, edited and transcribed his novels, stuck with him through thick and thin, and who is dependent on her husband’s income for her and the family’s sustenance. She knows her husband as a man, not a messiah: Sofya is the anti-Tolstoyan. Tolstoy is torn between love for his wife and love of his philosophy and beliefs, and he has not long to live. The struggle has reached its denoument. Who will prevail?

The story is told through the eyes of Valentin (McAvoy), hired by Chertkov to be private secretary to the great man, and a spy for the movement. Valentin is a naïf and a devotee of the Tolstoyan philosophy, but he sees the tragedy befalling this family. He is also the vehicle for a digressive love story with the earthy and lovely Masha (Kerry Condon). Happily, this merely serves to bolster Valentin’s understanding and empathy, without interfering with the arc of the main story. McAvoy, as usual, is appealing, and allows us to identify with Valentin’s perspective as the story unfolds.

Giamotti’s screen roles seem to alternate between somewhat nebbishy, Everyman characters, and sleazy, manipulative types. In his Chertkov, we see a convincing depiction of the latter. Thus, in the competition between his Tolstoyans and Sofya Tolstoy, our sympathies naturally trend in her direction.

Tolstoy himself is realistically and movingly portrayed by Plummer, as a man possessed of both hubris and humility, caught between two powerful, compelling desires, and cognizant of his mortality, resentful of the need to make an impossible choice at a time of life when all he wants is peace. Plummer earned an academy award nomination for this supporting role.

Ultimately, this is Helen Mirren’s movie. If you are a fan of great acting or of this actress, or both, you should see it.

Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix streaming.