B

There’s a moment near the beginning of Michael Hoffman’s picture about Count Leo Tolstoy’s last days that’s not only lovely in itself but encapsulates the film’s basic theme. The writer’s doctor has brought a newfangled gramophone to the ramshackle estate from which the great man, now more mystic and pamphleteer than novelist but revered as the soul of Russia, leads a quasi-religious, quasi-political movement combining celibacy, pacifism, a generalized love of mankind, and a naïve agricultural socialism. When the physician plays a record of Tolstoy speaking, the author recoils; but when his wife, an opera aficionado, puts on some music, he melts. The piece she plays is that ravishing portion of the Act IV finale to Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro” in which Count Almaviva begs forgiveness of his wife. Since much of “The Last Station” is devoted to Countess Sofya’s fury over her husband’s decision to bequeath the copyright to his work not to his family but to the Tolstoyan movement headed by an obsessive true believer whom she despises, and concludes with the couple’s reconciliation as he’s dying, this early sequence, though brief, suffuses the picture.

Of course, Hoffman, working from Jay Parini’s stylistically complicated novel, condenses events and, in order to achieve the symmetry that Mozart aria demands, ignores the fact that according to the record, Sofya wasn’t admitted to her dying husband’s bedside. But one shouldn’t expect absolute historical fidelity in a work like this. What you should want is emotional truth, and in the central relationship between Tolstoy and Sofya it achieves that, thanks not only to the writing, which captures its complex, volcanic quality, but especially to the rich performances of Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren. Both inhabit their roles fully from their first appearances. Plummer instantly conveys a still-virile octogenarian well aware of his celebrity but equally conscious of his imperfections, while Mirren perfectly moves between sequences in which Sofya is decorous and scheming to others in which she rages like a harridan. These are highly theatrical turns, but done with such relish and expertise that one can’t help but smile at the exhibition of sheer virtuosity. The stars are an absolute joy to watch, in their scenes both together and apart.

The rest of the film isn’t quite up to their level. The casting of Paul Giamatti as Vladimir Chertkov, the leader of the Tolstoyans who’s maneuvering the writer to sign over the copyright to his work to the Russian people, is simply a mistake. He’s an excellent actor for some roles, but what one wants here is a degree of wounded integrity that Giamatti seems unable—or unwilling—to project. He comes across as a simple conniver, actually twirling his moustaches as he works to get Tolstoy’s royalties for his movement. Perhaps it was Hoffman’s intention to have the character played so broadly, in order to make the Countess more sympathetic, despite her own self-serving histrionics. But if so, it was a miscalculation, because it reduces what might have been a much more subtle, balanced confrontation into something rather simplistic and clear-cut.

There’s an equally obvious element to the character of Valentin Bulgakov, the devoted young Tolstoyan whom Chertkov places in the household as the master’s personal secretary to serve as his spy, but who comes to empathize with Sofya. The naïve fellow is played with a genial comic tone by James McAvoy, but his romance with Masha (Kerry Condon), a proto-feminist member of Tolstoy’s commune who not only challenges but quickly overcomes the young man’s embrace of the celibate lifestyle. The relationship is meant to act both as a youthful reflection of Tolstoy’s own admission of his lustful proclivities both past and present, and as a counterpoint to Chertkov’s primly abstemious attitude (which leads the countess to look upon his sexual inclinations with disdain, even abhorrence). But once again it reduces things to a very simplistic state, particularly because Condon presents the girl in floridly modern terms. The rest of the supporting cast give similarly one-note performances, from Anne-Marie Duff as Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha, a supporter of Chertkov, and John Sessions as the physician who takes down the great man’s every utterance, to Patrick Kennedy’s rigid commune steward.

Visually “The Last Station” is fine without being exceptional. Though obviously made on a limited budget (indeed, one could imagine the script being easily redone for the stage), it benefits from a solid period production design by Patrizia von Brandenstein and art directors Andreas Olshausen and Erwin W. Prib, along with elegant set and costume design by Mark Rosinski and Monica Jacobs, respectively. Sebastian Edschmid’s cinematography captures it all with simple, unforced elegance, and Sergey Yevushenko’s music is supportive without being obtrusive.

This is a film notable primarily as a platform for a thespian tour de force by Plummer and Mirren, and they’re not to be missed.