The Last Station (2009)
Country: GER/GB/RUS
Technical: col/2.39:1 112m
Director: Michael Hoffman
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, Kerry Condon, Anne-Marie Duff
Synopsis:
An idealistic young secretary gets a job working for an organisation devoted to promoting Tolstoy's views on social equality and welfare. However, his loyalties are divided between the demands of his proselytic employer, who seeks to overturn the Count's will, and the preservation of peace within the Tolstoy household. He also falls in love with a more skeptical co-worker in the cause.
Review:
Hoffman's picturesque hagiography alas juggles too many ingredients at once and collapses beneath its own stodginess. We have the Mirren-Plummer relationship, more than a little theatrical, sometimes farcical; the McAvoy-Condon relationship, epitomising the naïve purity of Tolstoy's mission; and the machinations of the audibly re-dubbed Giamatti, evoking the Euro-pudding this production very nearly is. The latter never quite come into sharp focus, and the former both fail to stir us. Equally, newcomers to Tolstoy might well find themselves missing something here.
Country: GER/GB/RUS
Technical: col/2.39:1 112m
Director: Michael Hoffman
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, Kerry Condon, Anne-Marie Duff
Synopsis:
An idealistic young secretary gets a job working for an organisation devoted to promoting Tolstoy's views on social equality and welfare. However, his loyalties are divided between the demands of his proselytic employer, who seeks to overturn the Count's will, and the preservation of peace within the Tolstoy household. He also falls in love with a more skeptical co-worker in the cause.
Review:
Hoffman's picturesque hagiography alas juggles too many ingredients at once and collapses beneath its own stodginess. We have the Mirren-Plummer relationship, more than a little theatrical, sometimes farcical; the McAvoy-Condon relationship, epitomising the naïve purity of Tolstoy's mission; and the machinations of the audibly re-dubbed Giamatti, evoking the Euro-pudding this production very nearly is. The latter never quite come into sharp focus, and the former both fail to stir us. Equally, newcomers to Tolstoy might well find themselves missing something here.
Country: GER/GB/RUS
Technical: col/2.39:1 112m
Director: Michael Hoffman
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, Kerry Condon, Anne-Marie Duff
Synopsis:
An idealistic young secretary gets a job working for an organisation devoted to promoting Tolstoy's views on social equality and welfare. However, his loyalties are divided between the demands of his proselytic employer, who seeks to overturn the Count's will, and the preservation of peace within the Tolstoy household. He also falls in love with a more skeptical co-worker in the cause.
Review:
Hoffman's picturesque hagiography alas juggles too many ingredients at once and collapses beneath its own stodginess. We have the Mirren-Plummer relationship, more than a little theatrical, sometimes farcical; the McAvoy-Condon relationship, epitomising the naïve purity of Tolstoy's mission; and the machinations of the audibly re-dubbed Giamatti, evoking the Euro-pudding this production very nearly is. The latter never quite come into sharp focus, and the former both fail to stir us. Equally, newcomers to Tolstoy might well find themselves missing something here.