The Last Station

Germany/Russia/UK, 2009 (15A)

Dir: Michael Hoffman

 

A stellar cast  - including Thurles born Kerry Condon - make this fictionalised account of the final days of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy an engrossing watch. The year is 1910 and the great man (a suitably imposing Christopher Plummer) is treated as a multi-media celebrity. Reporters and newsreel cameramen dog his steps, covering the ongoing dispute between his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren), and the Tolstoyan political movement that’s contesting the valuable publishing rights for War and Peace. Each side seeks to use Tolstoy’s new secretary (James McAvoy) to discover what the old man’s really thinking, but Tolstoy is just interested in the young man’s romantic misadventures.