The Last Station

Literature lasts, but sometimes, The Last Station suggests, the ties that bind last, too.

Some critics have derided the central performances as scenery-chewing excess, but these Tolstoys are characters who demand histrionics, and Mirren and Plummer are magnificent in delivering on those demands.

The Last Station is a moving, fictionalized account of a piece of real Russian history, a tour de force for an actor who's in his prime in his 70s and 80s, and a real return to form for a director most at home in period pieces.

Engaging performers all, but the movie's superficial flummery is slightly exasperating when the true-life events would have provided an even richer palette of ideas.

It's rewarding for a film to render rarefied ideas so concretely, but The Last Station works best as a battle of wills between husband and wife.

Director and writer Michael Hoffman, adapting Jay Parini's novel, lets the history play out, and this little-known chapter plays out nicely indeed.

Mature Tolstoy biopic recounts his conflicted last days.

The Last Station is the kind of adult drama that I'm just thankful is still being made. Therefore, I was ecstatic to also find it to be rather good.

full review at Movies for the Masses

Feels akin to using Tolstoy's life to write a greeting card.

La película es un placer de principio a fin, no sólo por su valor testimonial y su estupenda reconstrucción de época, sino sobre todo por un notable elenco donde se lucen particularmente Helen Mirren y Christopher Plummer.

All of the performances are universally stellar, making this not unlike last year's Doubt %u2014 a solid, if otherwise unremarkable film that provides a playground for performers of prodigious talents.