Movie Review Rewind: The Last Station (2009)

On this edition of Movie Review Rewind, Brandon Vick flips the calendar back to 2009 for a look at Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in The Last Station.

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The Last Station is surprisingly quite good and never boring. It holds your interest and intrigue about the legendary writer Leo Tolstoy and the love of his life, his wife, Sofya. The film really embraces its characters and the great performances, especially by Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer. It is about a long-lasting love that encounters many obstacles, but still keeps going.

The Last Station focuses on the last year or so of Tolstoy’s life and what he will do with his literary legacy. It takes place in 1910 and the Tolstoyan movement is really heating up. It is practically a cult that listens and lives by Tolstoy’s written word. Sofya wants Tolstoy to give the rights of his work to her when he dies. Of course, she wants it because it is her husband’s work so she has the right to have it. And the big chunk of change would mostly be for their children.

However, the most loyal follower of Tolstoy and apparently the “leader” of the Tolstoy movement, Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), wants him to sign over his work to the Russian people. In return, it will keep the movement alive and have the ability to reach people all over the world. Now Chertkov sends a spy in to Tolstoy’s home to be his personal secretary and to write down what he sees and hears. Valentin (James McAvoy) ends up being caught in the middle because Sofya asks him to do the same thing for her. Meanwhile, Valentin is falling in love and he gets to see all forms of it throughout the film.

This is the issue of the film, but not necessarily what it is about. That is the beauty of The Last Station. Director Michael Hoffman‘s story is simply about love and how it can be expressed and shown in many ways. Love can be gentle, tough, easy, complicated, over before you know it, or everlasting. I believe Tolstoy and Sofya have been through all sorts of love throughout their 50+ years of marriage. And they may drive each other crazy, but they never give up on love or each other.

A lot of credit goes to the performances of Plummer as Tolstoy and Mirren as his wife Sofya. Their chemistry and spunk light up the screen, and what these two actors can do at their age is nothing short of spectacular. But McAvoy always seems left in the dark and I have no idea why. He is a great actor who has been in some great films, but others in them usually get the spotlight or an Oscar.

He was in Atonement, The Last King of Scotland, and Wanted. All the films are different, yet all terrific, interesting, and entertaining. And he is really good in this one as well. McAvoy’s character is one of the few that gets to see how Tolstoy and Sofya interact with each other and their intimate discussions and private arguments. While he watches one love hang by a thread, his love is just blossoming.

I never knew how important and powerful Tolstoy was. All of his followers considered him close to Jesus Christ himself. But Tolstoy didn’t flaunt or have an ego. He liked the thought of everyone as equal and all living things serving a purpose. The Tolstoyan movement also pushed out the thought of having any kind of romance and this included sex. But Tolstoy even says some people were better Tolstoyans than he. That means he didn’t follow every rule of the Tolstoyan movement.

The Last Station teaches you about Tolstoy, but shows you his struggles and the struggles of his wife. You also get to see how important they were to each other. They may disagree about a lot of things, but love gets them through until the very end. I may make the film seem sappy, but it’s not. It is a great story about two people who need each other more than they know.

Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.

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