Review of The Last Station (2009) by Michael B — 31 Mar 2011

This film about the conflicted life of Leo Tolstoy boasts some standout performances from Plummer and Mirren. Mirren might even manage to upstage Plummer, although her character is played out with much more deliberate exuberance and flare. Tolstoy's struggle on the other hand is a much more subdued battle of seeking to balance the reality of his life (fame and fortune) with the reality of his name (that speaks against materialism and the careless futility of much of our sexual and monetary obsessions). Acting as the check point between the rocky relationship of these two is McAvoy, who plays a ready understudy who finds himself whisked in the midst of great ambitions into the allure of worldly pleasures and forced to reconcile his own experience with that of his hero in Tolstoy.

It's a powerful drama that reaches to ignite the spirit behind of one of the great Russian and world authors. It's not so much a philosophical piece, although that definitely plays a strong part, as it is a character drama about what it means to actually live out our own words and thoughts in the minute areas of our lives. It is a fictionalized account of true history, something which its leads must embody and do embody so well.