The Last Station

In 1910, Russia’s Leo Tolstoy was arguably the most celebrated writer in the world, known far and wide for his epic works War & Peace and Anna Karenina. Nowadays, that’s pretty much the extent of many’s people’s knowledge of the man, and it may be difficult to appreciate that he was probably one of the 20^th century’s first true ‘celebrity’ figures, with fin de siècle paparazzi camped out in front of his Yasnaya Polyana estate, and foreign newspapers reporting on the state of his marriage.

Tolstoy married his wife Sofya in 1862, and they were together for nearly five decades. However, their marriage became increasingly strained in later years. Fiercely intelligent in her own right, at a time when women were widely regarded as intellectually inferior, Sofya not only had to contend with her husband’s fame, but also his shifting ideological beliefs and his growing army of followers. The self-dubbed Tolstoyists regarded him as a living saint, elevating him to the position of exalted guru. More worryingly for Sofya, they battled to persuade Tolstoy to bequeth them the copyright of his most celebrated works – to the expense of the countess and her children.

As both Tolstoy and his Sofya kept exhaustative diaries throughout their lives, this battle has been well documented, and is here brought to the screen by writer and director Michael Hoffman (One Fine Day, Restoration), who has largely opted to tell the tale through the eyes of one such Tolstoyist – Valentin Bulgakov, played by James McAvoy. The young idealist is appointed by arch Tolstoyist Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) to act as secretary to Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) during the final months of his life, and at the same time to keep a tab on Sofya (Helen Mirren).

Adapted from Jay Parini’s novel of the same name, The Last Station is a lush period drama that has unsurprisingly picked up award nominations. The cast turn in sterling performances, but the film’s main problem is more the way that history has been re-interpreted for entertainment value. At its heart, this is the tale of a marital breakdown so dark and painful that the historian A.N. Wilson regarded it as “one of the unhappiest in literary history”. To make it more viewer-friendly, the countess here flounders between hysterical, bewildered and bemused. Rounding on her husband’s adoring fans, you almost expect her to say “He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy!”

Tolstoy’s feelings are also presented in a more ambiguous fashion, with the end result being that his ultimate decision to desert his wife lacks credibility. It all verges a little too closely to farce in places, when the reality was undoubtedly far bleaker. Throwing in a love interest for the young Bulgakov might widen the appeal of the movie, but it adds little to the story of Tolstoy’s tragic last months, and despite Hoffman’s best efforts to ramp up the melodrama, the pace still labours at certain points. What should have been heart-wrenching ends up as merely interesting.

Last edited: 20th June 2010