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I finally got around to watching The Last Station. Despite my many misgivings, I found myself enjoying this movie largely for the stellar performance by Helen Mirren, which was worthy of a Moscow stage. Christopher Plummer gave a solid performance as the Count, but clearly this movie was all about Sofiya Tolstaya, or rather Parini and Hoffman’s interpretation of Tolstoy’s mercurial wife.

I haven’t read the novel, so I can only assume Hoffman was relatively faithful to it. Seems that the author took the form of Valentin Bulgakov (who was really Tolstoy’s secretary) to weave this tale of unbridled passion, literary intrigues and ultimately a battle over Tolstoy’s estate.

Bulgakov acts as an intermediary between Vladimir Chertkov and Tolstoy, after Chertkov fell afoul of the Tsarist government for his political activism. I suppose Parini delved more fully into Chertkov’s past, as he established a publishing house in 1885, apparently an inspiration of Tolstoy, to make his works more widely available and publish others like Leskov and Chekhov. Chertkov came from an aristocratic family and funded this publishing house himself. When he went into exile in 1897 he established another publishing company in London known as The Free Age Press which made Tolstoy available in English for the first time, attracting the attention of Aylmer and Louise Maude, who would translate much of Tolstoy in the years to come, although they apparently had their differences with Chertkov.

By most accounts I have read, Chertkov wasn’t a bad guy. He devoted himself entirely to Tolstoy’s teachings and legacy, publishing many of his later works when Tolstoy himself ran afoul of the government and the Orthodox church. But, I suppose Parini and/or Hoffman needed a bad guy for this movie and Chertkov filled the bill. Giamatti turns Chertkov into a shifty, conniving executor intent on getting his hands on the full body of Tolstoy’s work, much to poor Sofiya’s chagrin.

Needless to say, Helen Mirren makes the viewer empathize completely with her situation and Plummer makes Tolstoy look like a poor dolt barely half there who in the end is seduced into leaving Yasnaya Polyana, which he apparently had all but disowned anyway, pretty much content to keep his writing desk in the stables. How much of this is “true” is anyone’s guess, but one goes along for the ride just the same, because it is an enchanting one.

Sadly, the romance between Valentin and Masha serves more as a distraction than a love story. With all his nervous sneezes and inability to wield an axe you have to wonder what Masha sees in him, but apparently he was the easiest to coax into bed, and so a love story emerges that seems rather insipid compared to the great passion we see between Lev and Sofiya, resulting in a bedroom scene that completely upstages that we saw previously between our younger love birds.

That Tolstoy would express so much interest in Valentin seems a bit odd, but may have been the case. Mostly, this relationship provides the viewer with the opportunity of “being there.” Surprisingly, Valentin also gains Sofiya’s ear, as she gives him a second journal to transcribe her side of events and so our poor young secretary finds himself caught between the Tolstoys and Chertkov, resulting in the expected climax where he finds a way for Sofiya to see her beloved husband before he passes away on his improvised death bed at Astapovo Station.

Much has been written with very different impressions of the relationships portrayed in this movie, so I wouldn’t take this cinematic portrait as the last word. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable to watch despite whatever misgivings you might have.