“Everything that I know I only know because of love.”
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
He wrote one of the great novels about war and peace, but author Leo Tolstoy’s last years had a lot more of the former than the latter. In the Last Station, Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), Russia’s first great literary superstar and creator of some of the great romantic heroines in literature, has spent his last years in a power struggle with his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) over political differences and the machinations of Tolstoy’s friend Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) about her husband’s will.
Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren
The attraction of Tolstoy to Sofya, 16 years his junior, was magnetic, their affair passionate. She not only bore him 13 children but also acted as secretary, proofreader and copyist (she copied War and Peace six times).
But in later years, his political and religious ideas changed markedly; though born to wealth, he rejected the idea of private property, advocated passive resistance (is credited with inspiring both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr), and came to promote asceticism. He even started an austere Tolstoyan commune with his friend Chertkov, where residents were expected to be celibate and work at self-perfection.
Paul Giamatti & James McAvoy
But after 1883, the principles of moral self-improvement became the guiding rule for both Chertkov and Tolstoy. Sofya would have none of it – she just wanted her husband back – and the disagreement caused a chasm in their relationship that only grew with time.
Kerry Condon & James McAvoy
The Last Station takes place in 1910, when Sofya gets wind that Chertkov wants Tolstoy to change his will and leave his literary output to “the people of Russia.” It’s also the year Chertkov hires the young Tolstoyan devotee Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) as a “secretary” to spy on Sofya and write down everything she says and does.
She does not take kindly to this, and it’s a struggle of the titans between Tolstoy and Sofya. But when all her rages, insults and tears can’t move him, she tries begging – never losing her dignity. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment. Meanwhile, Tolstoy muses sadly, “For the first few years, we were incredibly, terrifyingly happy. And now this.”
Meanwhile, the young self-proclaimed celibate Valentin’s world is upended when he meets the young and attractive Masha (Kerry Condon), who turns out to be not only sexy but a much better woodchopper than he. He is smitten, and The Last Station becomes an exploration of two loves: one that has hit the rocks, the other just beginning.
Giamatti is terrific as the bad guy: officious, committed, backstabbing s.o.b. who can’t wait to get Sofya out of the way.
Mildly marred by a few hokey plot points, The Last Station would be just another costume drama (though beautifully filmed in Saxony) but for the rare opportunity it offers to see these terrific actors (Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, Paul Giamatti and James McAvoy) at the top of their form. They give us gripping theater.
Photo credit: Sony Classics Pictures
