Review: The Last Station

Bore and Peace

As much as I try, there’s always a couple of films I fail to see before the announcement of the Oscar nominations. Generally, I try to see all the potential Best Picture nominees, as well as the acting nominees as well. Even though Maggie Gyllenhaal was a surprise to some, I had seen her due to Jeff Bridges’s work in Crazy Heart. This film boasts two nominees for Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer. Unfortunately the film didn’t reach Chicago until after the Oscar announcement. But now it’s out and I have seen it, and while there are some admirable things about it, the film eventually loses steam by the end and concludes with rather disappointing results.

It is near the end of the road for famed Russian author Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), and many members of his political movement towards peace and equality are urging him to change his will to renounce his material possessions and give the copyright laws on his works to public domain. The movement’s plans are undermined by Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), who wants her husband’s possessions to stay within the family. Tolstoy’s good friend Vladmir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) sends out an ambitious activist named Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) to spy on the dysfunctional family and report back on progress.

I think the start of this film feels is rather strong. Writer-director Michael Hoffman does a credible job at setting up the look and texture of the world, as well as establishing the political atmosphere of the time, as well as the stakes that come with it. There’s a world of subtle suggestion that allows the world to completely take over. But the film doesn’t hold onto that for long, and eventually slips into a muddled pace that runs on a worn out plot. That is coupled with some soap opera histrionics that tend to clash with the more quiet moments the film established earlier. By the time the end comes, it feels like a long journey that dragged itself to the end, which is a shame considering the delicate care the first half of this film managed to keep.

As I’ve already mentioned, Mirren and Plummer have received nominations from the Academy, but I would say that neither of them really deserve it. These performances do show their great range and talent as actors, and they also manage to work well off of eachother. However, there are often too many scenes of Plummer becoming a little too subdued in his reclusive character, while Mirren overindulges far too often of on giant explosions of energy, which I’ve always found counter-productive in a career whose best work has been in restrained films like Gosford Park and The Queen. Honestly, the best performer here is McAvoy. I would say this is his best role of his career, and he manages to showcase all the right emotions to all the right ways. He feels like the most grounded and realistic character in the film, and he is the greatest asset for it.

The direction isn’t terrible, the production and costume designs are great, the score has a timeless sense that fits perfectly, and the acting for the most part is pretty good. There are things I like in this movie, but ultimately it doesn’t carry it all the way through. It squanders a good first half hour with a meandering, muddled second half that gets diluted further by histrionics. Fortunately, I don’t see Mirren or Plummer winning, but at least I fulfilled by duty for this picture. The only one left is to see Woody Harrelson in The Messenger. **1/2 / ****; GRADE: B-