A TEMPESTUOUS TOLSTOY BIOPIC

The director Michael Hoffman is a master at embellishing stories with period trappings; he has proved as much with films like "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Restoration". "The Last Station", based upon Jay Parini’s 1990 biographical novel of the same name, recounts the final, tempestuous months of the life of Leo Tolstoy, incarnated on screen by Christopher Plummer. Hoffman endows this adaptation with misty steppes, waxed moustaches, peasants bundled in swaths of linen and an ample supply of those droshkies without which no character from any of Tolstoy’s own novels would have gotten very far.

Trappings aside, the plot itself is a knotted one, with almost enough characters to warrant one of those genealogical charts that Tolstoy himself so often provided. We gain access to the writer’s private life by way of Valentin Bulgakov, a naïve young scholar (played by a baby-faced James McAvoy), who is hired on as Tolstoy’s secretary. In contrast with Valentin’s vulnerability (he’s a virgin with a nervous cough), Tolstoy appears luminous, his greatness blinding, complete with a biblical white beard and gauzy robes. Upon arrival at the estate, Valentin is immediately pulled into a venomous struggle between Tolstoy’s wife, Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), and the author's scheming disciple, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti). The two vie for the rights to Tolstoy’s work: the countess is wary of seeming greedy as she grasps for her inheritance, while Vladimir, a commune leader, conspires to transform Tolstoy into an icon.

Soon Valentin finds himself not only mediating the battle between Sofya and Vladimir but also arbitrating the larger war between Sofya and Tolstoy himself. Mirren is marvellous in the role of this drama queen, who breaks plates, spies on business meetings and even attempts suicide in an effort to win her husband’s attention and affection. After an especially violent fight, Tolstoy screams to Sofya, “You don’t need a husband, you need a Greek chorus!”

But the notoriously fraught marriage also includes moments of “terrifying happiness” (Tolstoy's term, and perhaps one of the finest descriptions of love), which punctuate the equilibrium of discord. Tolstoy and his wife have pet names for each other and enjoy what appears to be a regular and hot-blooded sex life. Valentin takes cues from the marriage’s undeniable passion in his pursuit of the rosy-cheeked Masha (Kerry Condon), a commune worker who all but defines “spunk”. Like any good costume drama, "The Last Station" is a golden-lit, tryst-ridden film, teeming with stifled lust that quickly warms to full-blown carnality.

Hoffman has accomplished a great deal with this film: he depicts the extent of Tolstoy’s celebrity, reveals the man's heated home life and divulges the slimy legal dealings that preceded his death. But the film's most spectacular success is its portrayal of feminine will. The women of "The Last Station" galvanise their men to greatness. Without Masha, Valentin would have been a sad milquetoast, afraid to stand up to Vladimir and unsure of his alliances. Without Sofya, in old age, Tolstoy would have become a mind without a body, and perhaps more importantly, his books would not be what they are today: tenderly edited masterpieces of equal head and heart.

~ ALICE GREGORY

Image credit: Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren; photo taken by Stephan Rabold (courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)