The Last Station
Christopher Plummer plays Leo Tolstoy and Helen Mirren his wife, Sofya, in this account of the final year of Tolstoy’s life.
Directed by Michael Hoffman
(R)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Leo Tolstoy and his wife, Sofya, face the author’s final days.
An account of the fraught final year of Leo Tolstoy’s life, The Last Station is the “kind of movie that gives literature a bad name,” said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Self-consciously serious and overly dramatic, the film aims to tell the story of the domestic war and peace between Tolstoy and his wife, Sofya, in the final years of their lives. In a grand display of acting fireworks, Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren play the troubled couple. Plummer’s Tolstoy is a “volatile Russian Santa Claus,” while Mirren’s Sofya is an emotional wreck, delivering operatic tirades one second and falling into desperate neediness the next. The actors occasionally overdo the drama, but that’s what keeps the film from becoming a musty piece of Masterpiece Theatre, said Stephen Farber in The Hollywood Reporter. Together, their performances give The Last Station an “emotional wallop” that historical dramas usually lack. The two “performing demons go at each other full-tilt and produce scenes of Shakespearean affection, chagrin, and rage,” said David Denby in The New Yorker. Watching them share the screen is like spending a “great night at the theater.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
5 blustery cartoons about the Stormy Daniels testimony
Cartoons Artists take on gag orders, lurid details, and more
By The Week US Published
-
The Idea of You review: 'impossible escapism' starring Anne Hathaway
The Week Recommends Steamy romcom about a 40-year-old who falls for a boy band singer
By The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: May 11, 2024
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published