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The Last Station

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I haven't had a chance to see this recent movie, but  I see A.O. Scott didn't think much of it,

All well and good, but “The Last Station,” written and directed by Michael Hoffman and based on a novel by Jay Parini, is the kind of movie that gives literature a bad name. Not because it undermines the dignity of a great writer and his work, but because it is so self-consciously eager to flaunt its own gravity and good taste. 

but Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor is much more positive,

... one of the terrific things about writer-director Michael Hoffman’s “The Last Station” is that, as Christopher Plummer plays him, the old master is, of all things, a recognizable human being. He’s not an icon, at least not to himself and his adoring, long-suffering wife, Sofya, played with ravenous theatricality by Helen Mirren. The film is about many things – including the rise of quasi-socialist communes devoted to passive resistance that sprang up around Tolstoy in his final days – but it’s finally, and most successfully, about the amorous battle between the count and countess.

I'll leave it to others to cast their judgement on this film, until I have had a chance to see it.

Comments

  1. avrdsMarch 10, 2010 at 9:10 AM

    Gintaras, I really enjoyed it. It has its weaknesses, as I mentioned earlier, particularly with the casting of the young woman, but I thought it was very enjoyable.

    It's based on a novel that also sounds appealing:

    http://www.amazon.com/Last-Station-Novel-Tolstoys-Year/dp/B000H2MWPM

    ReplyDelete
  2. avrdsMarch 10, 2010 at 9:12 AM

    And I still want to get to Wilson's bio of Tolstoy.

    http://www.amazon.com/Tolstoy-Biography-N-Wilson/dp/0393321223/

    Maybe this will be the summer of Tolstoy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James FergusonMarch 10, 2010 at 10:37 AM

    I've heard the Henri Troyat bio is better,

    http://www.amazon.com/Tolstoy-Henri-Troyat/dp/0802137687

    ReplyDelete
  4. avrdsMarch 10, 2010 at 11:58 AM

    I really like Wilson's books, but if I get on one of my reading binges, I am open to also reading Troyat. I was totally taken with Tolstoy after reading War and Peace and haven't had time yet to really read about him.

    ReplyDelete

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