Review of The Last Station (2009) by Penthesilea G — 01 Jul 2010

A superb cast and strong sense of time and place make this a reasonably rich, rewarding movie experience, with Christopher Plummer earning his first Oscar nomination for playing iconic Russian novelist Lev Tolstoy in all his conflicted, tired, joyful, principled glory.

Based on Jay Parini's historical novel that fictionalizes Tolstoy's last days, the film moves with grace and ease, has a fluid control over its tone and is buoyed more by excellent performances from its well-cast, well-played actors than by the machinations within its script.

The principle cast - Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti and Plummer - are uniformly excellent, breathing gusts of life into their characters in all their flawed glory. Even though the film sometimes feels like a tourist's view of the last days of Tolstoy, the story holds the attention and ultimately delivers enough emotion, poignancy and hope to hold its narrative threads in place.