''The Last Station'' is a 2009 English-language German

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

drama film written and directed by Michael Hoffman, and based on

Jay Parini Jay Parini (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, and Herman Melville. Early l ...

's 1990 biographical novel of the same name, which chronicled the final months of

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

's life. The film stars

Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...

as Tolstoy and

Helen Mirren Dame Helen Mirren (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only performer to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom ...

as his wife Sofya Tolstaya. The film is about the battle between Sofya and his disciple Vladimir Chertkov for his legacy and the copyright of his works. The film premiered at the 2009

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, t ...

Plot

In 1910, the last year of

's life, his disciples, led by Vladimir Chertkov, manoeuvre against his wife, Sofya, for control over Tolstoy's works after his death. The main setting is the Tolstoy country estate of

Yasnaya Polyana Yasnaya Polyana ( rus, Я́сная Поля́на, p=ˈjasnəjə pɐˈlʲanə, literally: "Bright Glade") is a writer's house museum, the former home of the writer Leo Tolstoy. Bartlett, p. 25 It is southwest of Tula, Russia, and from Mosco ...

. Tolstoy and Sofya have had a long, passionate marriage, but his spiritual ideals and asceticism (he is opposed, for example, to private property) are at odds with her more aristocratic and conventionally religious views. Contention focuses on a new will that the "

Tolstoyan The Tolstoyan movement is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mo ...

s" are attempting to persuade him to sign. It would place all of his copyrights into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

, supposedly leaving his family without adequate support. The maneuvering is seen through the eyes of Tolstoy's new secretary,

Valentin Bulgakov Valentin Fyodorovich Bulgakov (russian: Валентин Фёдорович Булгаков; 25 November 1886 in Kuznetsk, Russian Empire – 22 September 1966 in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Oblast, Soviet Union) was the last secretary of Leo Tolsto ...

, who finds himself mediating between the two sides. He also has a love affair with one of the Tolstoyans, Masha. Ultimately, Tolstoy signs the new will and travels to an undisclosed location where he can continue his work undisturbed. After his departure, Sofya unsuccessfully attempts suicide. During the journey, Tolstoy falls ill. The film ends with his death near the Astapovo railway station where Sofya is allowed by their daughter to see him just moments before his death. The closing credits state that five years after his death the

Russian senate The Federation Council (russian: Сове́т Федера́ции – ''Soviet Federatsii'', common abbreviation: Совфед – ''Sovfed''), or Senate (officially, starting from July 1, 2020) ( ru , Сенат , translit = Senat), is th ...

reverted the copyrights of Tolstoy's work to Sofya.

Cast

as Sofya, Leo's wife *

Paul Giamatti Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...

as Vladimir Chertkov, the leader of Tolstoy's devoted disciples *

James McAvoy James McAvoy (; born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in '' The Near Room'' (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his feature film career began. His notable television work includes ...

Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov Valentin Fyodorovich Bulgakov (russian: Валентин Фёдорович Булгаков; 25 November 1886 in Kuznetsk, Russian Empire – 22 September 1966 in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Oblast, Soviet Union) was the last secretary of Leo Tolsto ...

, a private secretary * Kerry Condon as Masha, a fictional member of the Tolstoyans *

Anne-Marie Duff Anne-Marie Duff (born 8 October 1970) is an Irish actress and narrator. She is an accomplished theatre actress and has been nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award. She has also received acclaim and awards for her television and film work. After ...

as Sasha, Leo and Sofya's daughter * Patrick Kennedy as Sergeyenko *

John Sessions John Marshall (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020), better known by the stage name John Sessions, was a British actor and comedian. He was known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', as a panellist o ...

as Dr. Dušan Makovický, a Slovak, Leo's personal doctor

Production

Filming took place in the German federal states of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making i ...

, Brandenburg (

Studio Babelsberg Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...

) and

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

, the city of

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

in Saxony and at historical locations in Russia. The location for Jasnaja Poljana, the residence of the Tolstoy family, was the ''Schloss Stülpe'' palace near Luckenwalde in Brandenburg. The station of the small German town of Pretzsch stood in for Astapovo, the "last station" of the title. Still a working rural station, the Pretzsch station was closed for two weeks for filming.

Release and reception

Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights and gave the film an awards-qualifying limited release on 23 December 2009, with a

wide release In the American motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across the country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical r ...

on 15 January 2010. It was released in Germany on 28 January 2010. The film has received generally positive reviews. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 147 reviews, with an average rating of 6.70/10. The site's consensus states: "Michael Hoffman's script doesn't quite live up to its famous subject, but this Tolstoy biopic benefits from a spellbinding tour de force performance by Helen Mirren." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

it has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Critic

Philip French Philip Neville French OBE (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film crit ...

praised McAvoy for bringing "the same amiable diffidence he brought to the role of Idi Amin's confidant in ''The Last King of Scotland''". Kenneth Turan of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' called Hoffman's direction "accomplished", and the film's centerpiece "the spectacular back and forth between Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren...For those who enjoy actors who can play it up without ever overplaying their hands, "The Last Station" is the destination of choice." On the negative side, critic Xan Brooks characterized the film as a "genteel domestic farce" and faulted the director for "pander ngto the worst impulses of the cast".

Accolades

Mirren won the Best Actress award at the 2009

Rome International Film Festival International Rome Film Fest is a film festival that takes place in Rome during the month of October. The name in Italian is Festa del Cinema di Roma. Sections The Rome Film Festival official program is divided into several sections: Cinema d'O ...

and at the 9th AARP Movies for Grownups Awards for her performance. She was also nominated for Best Actress – Drama at the

67th Golden Globe Awards The 67th Golden Globe Awards was telecasted live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, January 17, 2010 by NBC, from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (PST) and 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM (EST) (1:00 – 4:00; Monday, January 18 UTC). ...

, as was Plummer for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Both actors also received nominations for their performances at the

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

and the

Screen Actors Guild Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards (also known as SAG Awards) are accolades given by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The award was founded in 1952 to recognize outstanding performances in movie an ...

Home media

The film was released on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

on 22 June 2010.

References

*
The Last Year of Leo Tolstoy
', by Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov, Ann Dunnigan, 1971, Penguin Books, .

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Station 2009 films 2009 biographical drama films British biographical drama films German biographical drama films Russian biographical drama films English-language German films English-language Russian films Films directed by Michael Hoffman Films produced by Bonnie Arnold Biographical films about writers Films based on American novels Films set in country houses Films set in Russia Films set in 1910 Films shot in Moscow Films shot in Russia Sony Pictures Classics films Works about Leo Tolstoy Cultural depictions of Leo Tolstoy 2009 drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s British films 2000s German films