The Last Station (2009) Starring: James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren - Three Movie Buffs Review Reviewed on: February 27th, 2010 Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren in The Last Station. One of the many things I enjoy about watching movies is when you learn something about a time, a place or a famous person that you never knew anything about. With The Last Station I learned a thing or two about Leo Tolstoy; someone whom I knew nothing about beyond that he was Russian and wrote War and Peace amongst other novels. He seems, as presented here anyway, as a very interesting character. In fact he seems more interesting as a person than this movie does as a whole. Christopher Plummer stars as the famous author and Helen Mirren plays his wife. Together they make a formidable acting pair and the two of them get to chew up the scenery together. In some ways I was reminded of Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter. You have an aging married couple who are sparring back and forth played by two actors of immense talent. Where this movie differs vastly from The Lion in Winter is in the writing.

Where The Lion in Winter cuts deeply with sharp daggers of dialogue, The Last Station merely scratches the skin with blunted weapons that do no real damage. The story takes place at the end of Leo Tolstoy's life. After being a celebrated author Tolstoy now has a following that is almost religious in nature. Chertkov, the leader of his following, wants Tolstoy to leave the copyright to all his work to his group so that the money can (in his words) benefit all mankind. Just how this would be executed and who exactly it would gain beyond Chertkov is not really explained. On the other hand you've got Tolstoy's wife, the Countess, who wants to ensure that her children's legacy is left intact by making sure the rights to her husband's work remains in the family. Tolstoy is shown to be a bit of a contradiction. He sounds as though he led an interesting life as a young man and was rather wild in his way. He's also quite rich when the movie takes place and he lives quite well in pre-communist Russia. And yet he writes about and speaks about opposing private property and equality for all.

It doesn't stop him from employing servants, but he talks about it a lot. When and why he started feeling that way isn't explained. And just why Chertkov has such a sway over him isn't revealed either. Certainly the best scenes in the film are those featuring Plummer and Mirren together. Both have been nominated for Oscars for their performance here and deservedly so. Mirren is especially good as the overly dramatic wife. Together they both make the material better than it has a right to be. James McAvoy is likable enough as Tolstoy's private secretary from whom the story is ostensibly, if not exclusively, told, but this is Plummer and Mirren's film. I learned from watching this movie that Tolstoy was indeed an interesting figure and a great movie could probably be made about his life. While this is a good movie, thanks mainly to its leads, it's not a great one. With a better written script filled with sharper dialogue it might have been, but that's just not the case. Did you enjoy Scott's review? +4 Reviewed on: August 17th, 2010 The Last Station is first and foremost a love story.

Yeah that’s pretty much my take as well, great acting, fascinating central character, nice cinematography, with a script that is only so-so. Mirren gets the juiciest part by far. Her countess is passionate and volatile in her love for Tolstoy. The scene where she discovers he has left her is powerfully done. She stumbles blindly down to the river’s edge and then rolls off a dock into the water. She also provides some comic relief like in the scene when they are eating dinner outdoors and she tells his sycophants to stop writing down every word her husband utters. As a child I always wanted to read War and Peace. I haven’t yet managed that but I am in the middle of reading Anna Karenina so it was interesting to hear the few references to that book made by the countess. The title of this movie is an allusion to the importance of train stations in that novel. Tolstoy’s reputation as a writer is absolutely deserved and well-known. Not so well known today is the Tolstoyan belief system he created. His following is not almost religious, Scott, it is most definitely a religion. He set up communes to achieve a utopian vision of society.

He preached equality as well as celibacy. Scott I agree that he was contradictory in some things, but the reason he kept his servants was because his wife insisted on them. He would have let them go on his own. And though the movie tries to be fair in dealing with the struggle for Tolstoy’s affections and attentions (not to mention his wallet) between his wife and Chertkov it clearly favors his wife. This makes sense since The Last Station is first and foremost a love story. Reviewed on: April 21st, 2011 Helen Mirren and James McAvoy. Scott, Tolstoy is definitely shown to be a contradiction. As Patrick noted, "He preached equality as well as celibacy." Sofya points out to Valentin that Leo got laid all the time when he was Valentn's age. It is hardly a commitment to declare celibacy in old age. Early on, Leo states that if the poor had money they would not hire servants. He could not be more wrong. Of course they would want all of the luxuries enjoyed by the wealthy. Sofya on the other hand exaggerates by saying that if the poor were given money they would spend it on booze and whores.

Both act to the political extreme. Although Leo's socialist mindset is hypocritical, his biggest mistake was being taken in by Vladimir Chertkov. Leo was a huge egomaniac. He allowed men to follow him around taking notes on his every word. Chertkov fed his ego and Leo ate it up. Where his wife challenged him, Chertkov treated him like the second coming of Christ. As Valentin says to Chertkov, "You want to create an icon and you want people to kneel in front of an image that you create." Is it not interesting that the world's noted socialists all have strong political and social opinions yet have never worked for a living. Karl Marx never had a job. He lived off of other people providing for him. Tolstoy was born to an aristocratic, wealthy family, as was Chertkov. Vladimir Lenin was born to nobility and very briefly worked as a lawyer. Barack Obama went to private schools and elite colleges on grants. Other peoples money got him elected. These people claim to be of and for the worker but they themselves have no inkling of what working for a living is even like.

Two kinds of people follow the Tolstoys, Marxs, Lenins and Obamas of the world? Some young people breaking away from their parents are still in need of direction and find comfort in someone making sound bites about equality and hope. The other group are people of some means who feel guilty about their station in life and decide that claiming to have liberal ideals will rid them of that guilt. Valentin is the typical confused young man, taken in by the ideals of an inflated ego. He and the other youths living there never complain that Leo lives in the mansion, being waited on while they split wood and work in the fields. It is the common thread of socialism. The leaders of it speak of equality while their actions are anything but. Leo Tolstoy, as shown in this movie, was like so many celebrities today, being used by someone else to further their agenda. Also like modern celebrities and politicians, Tolstoy is portrayed as an arrogant hypocrite. I am not sure how close this is to his actual personality, but it seems in step with the rest of the worlds socialists. The Last Station (2009) - Visual Parables Visual Parables Rated R.

Our ratings: V-1 ; L-2 ; S-6/N- 5. Running time: 1 hour 52 min. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens. Lamentations 5:2 My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains Song of Songs 2:16-17 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.?” Matthew 6:19-21 After a spat the Count and Countess play their hen and rooster game. 2009 Sony Pictures Classics Few of us who have struggled through Leo Tolstoy’s gigantic War and Peace know much about the au thor, so Michael Hoffman, who wrote as well as directed the script of this film, has rendered us a real service.

Based on the events in the last year of the 82 year-old writer’s life, the film brings together two screen greats who give one of last year’s best, but alas, unheralded, portrayal of a couple deeply in love and yet so unmatched in temperament and values that they cannot live together in harmony. Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are magnificent as the warring couple whose storms of rage at times engulf all about them, time after time threatening to drive them apart. (By the way, I just realized that my use of “unheralded” applies more to the film than to the stars: at least Helen Mirren’s performance has garnered her a “Best Actress” Oscar nomination for 2009, and Christopher Plummer’s for Best Supporting Actor.) The film is told from the standpoint of the naïve young Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), the new private secretary for the Count, hired by the writer’s chief disciple and agent, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti).

Because the Countess Sofya loathes him, believing that he is attempting to persuade her husband to leave his land and royalties to “the people” rather than to his family, Chertkov cannot live at the estate. Thus, to keep posted on what is transpiring there, he gives a diary to Valentine, instructing him to write down everything that transpires, especially the names of those who visit the Count. Amusingly, later on, the Countess, seeking to befriend him, also gives the new secretary a diary, asking that he write down everything that transpires when she is not present. As Valentin arrives at and passes through the Tolstoy estate at Yasnaya Polyana, he stops at the commune that the Count has set up for some of his most devoted followers. Tolstoy is a dedicated pacifist and believer in a semi-anarchist state of society in which there is no private property, and thus a world- wide movement has sprung up around the great writer. As the Countess scornfully yells during one stormy luncheon, his followers regard him as Christ—and she even says that he might harbor the same view of himself.

(Fortunately her husband is too honest and humble a man for such a delusion.) At the commune Valentin meets Masha (Kerry Condon), an attractive young woman dressed in a man’s worker clothing performing one of the many chores assigned to commune members regardless of sex—Tolstoy teaches the equality of the sexes as well of the classes and races. When he meets the great man, Valentin is very impressed by his warmth and humanity—and the young man starts sneezing. (This nervous habit runs throughout the film, providing a source of amusement to us and to his friends.) He marvels that Tolstoy wants to talk about his, Valentin’s, writing, and not his own. Over the next few days the chaste young man becomes aware of the contradictions in the Count’s life—a teacher of celibacy who sired 13 children; a preacher of socialism who owns a large estate; a pacifist but subject to fits of rage; a believer in the blessed state of poverty who possesses great wealth; and an espouser of love who is at constant war with his wife. Caught at times between the two warring parties, Valentin is kept busy at times writing in his two diaries.

Along the way he also loses his virginity when the very worldly Masha visits him in his room one night. Valentin discovers that the love affair between the warring Count and Countess is not only long, but also exceedingly complex. They really do love each other, each confessing at one time or another their deep affection. However Sofya is conservative in her religious and social views, whereas her husband is a radical. And most of all, she is possessed by a mother’s deep devotion to their children, at least one of whom, Sasha (Anne-Marie Duff), lives with and serves them. Sofya is obsessively afraid that her husband will give away the entire family inheritance, leaving her and the children in poverty. Being poor to her is no blessing. We see the humanity of the Count and Countess when, after one tempestuous outburst that drives them apart, he looks in on her late at night. She invites him for a bout in bed, but he resists. She starts clucking and cackling like a hen, and this connects with “the old rooster” within him—it is obvious this is an old game they have loved playing through the years.

Soon, with him atop her, their bedroom sounds like a hen house with their rooster-hen noisemaking. The film takes its name from the episode in which the Count does leave her after a violent dispute over his will (he actually has met with Chertkov to sign a new one—in the middle of a woods of all places!). Vowing never to see her again, the Count hurriedly leaves with his daughter and Chertkov by coach, and then by train. What follows at the last train station at which the fleeing Count stops is heart-rending and heart-warming. The film begins with a quote from War and Peace: Prince Andrei states, “Everything I know I know only because of love.” That love can be complex and expressed in ways that seem contradictory, this story well demonstrates. The state of mind of the two elderly lovers in the film’s last sequence is well summed up by these words from the opening verses of the 3rd chapter of The Song of Solomon: Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.

I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves…’ For Reflection/Discussion May contain spoilers. 1. What did you learn about Leo Tolstoy that you did not know before? Were you surprised by the contradictions between his teachings and actual life? How, in a way, was he a prisoner of his wealth? How is this the source of contention between him and Sofya? 2. The Count obviously is impressed by Jesus’ teachings about wealth in Matthew 6, but what about Sofya? What do you think she would say in reply to it? How is the writer apparently but half-converted to it? (Do you think there is a bit of the rich young ruler in him? Or is he being a responsible steward of his wealth, aware that what he decides will impact a lot of lives dependent upon him, and not just members of his family.) At what points in your life does Ch. 6 of the Sermon on the Mount hurt or make you feel uncomfortable? How does it compare with “The American Way of Life” ? 3.

How is Valentin often put in the unwelcome position of being in the middle of the two sides striving for Tolstoy’s inheritance? (Notice how often he sneezes!) Are their times when you have been drawn into the middle of a family disagreement? What role were you able to play—taking sides; helping to clarify or mediate? 4. We can understand Sofya’s concern for herself and her children, but what about Chertkov’s motives? Does he seem altruistic to you, or do you think he might have other motives as he strives for control of Tolstoy’s published works? Does this change as the story unfolds? (He became the preserver and editor of Tolstoy’s works, and was also involved in the correspondence between the Count and Gandhi, described below in Question 7.) Which of the two—Sofya or Chertkov—do you think has the bigger picture of Count Tolstoy and his work? 5. How is Sasha also thrust into the middle of her parents’ warfare? Does she seem to you to be more of a believer in “Tolstoyism” than her mother? How does she show this? How is she torn at the “last station” ?

What do you think of her decision? 6. What do you understand to be the meaning of the quote from War and Peace, “Everything I know I know only because of love” ? Or should this be meanings? 7. We see several scenes of Tolstoy writing, some of it correspondence with his many admirers and disciples from around the world. Did you know that one of these, not mentioned in the film, was a young Indian lawyer living in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi? He was drawn to the writer’s pacifism as espoused in the book The Kingdom of God Is Within You, which he read while in prison. They exchanged letters in 1909 and 1910, Gandhi in his second letter calling himself “a humble follower of yours.” (Those interested in exploring this fascinating connection further might look into two books by Louis Fischer. The shortest is his GANDHI: His Life and Message for the World, pp. 39-40. (New York: Mentor Books, 1954.) In his excellent 550-page biography The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, he devotes a whole chapter (Ch. 13) to their relationship.

(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1950.) 8. There is a scene near the beginning of Peter Weir’s film The Year of Living Dangerously in which Tolstoy and his ideas concerning poverty are mentioned. In Jakarta, Indonesia as Billy Kwan, a Eurasian dwarf photographer, and Guy Hamilton, a newly arrived Australian reporter, are walking at night through a market where impoverished venders are hoping to sell their paltry goods, the two men talk of poverty, of Tolstoy, John the Baptist, and of Christ. Check it out—it makes for a great sermon or teaching illustration on the subject of poverty and our various responses to it. (Mel Gibson portrays the journalist and Linda Hunt portrays the photographer, for which she won the Oscar for “Best Actress,” even though Billy Kwan was a man.) 9. Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Read the following and discuss why: “The history of the church is the history of cruelty and horror…Every church with its doctrines of redemption and salvation, and above all the Orthodox faith with its idolatry, excludes the doctrine of Christ.” He also wrote that all Christian churches try “to conceal the true meaning of the doctrine of Christ.” (p. 96 of Fischer’s Life of M.G.) What about your church? How much of the Sermon on the Mount, which for Tolstoy with his doctrine of “passive resistance” was central to “the doctrine of Christ,” is “concealed” or perhaps a better word, “neglected,” by your church? Or maybe explained away as being “idealistic” rather than “realistic.” 10. How can writers such as Tolstoy influence us to become more involved in issues of poverty and war and peace? What are you and your church doing on behalf of such causes? Where in your community do you find the peacemakers?

The Last Station | Film Review | Slant Magazine The Last Station by Andrew Schenker November 30, 2009 In The Last Station, four dimly imagined characters act out the drama surrounding the final days in the life of Leo Tolstoy and, in adherence to the tradition (most recently embodied by Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles ) of viewing a historical superstar through the filter of an enthusiastic young follower, Michael Hoffman’s film takes the dimmest of this tetrad as its central figure. As played by James McAvoy, Valentin Bulgakov—who arrives at Tolstoy’s estate to serve as the aged writer’s secretary—is the very embodiment of youthful enthusiasm, but his naiveté and sexual priggishness are so exaggerated that they often verge on the parodic.

(He nearly swoons the first time he sees Tolstoy’s writings sitting at his work desk.) Even after a certain maturation, which involves bedding down with a local beauty with whom he immediately decides he’s in love and eventually reconsidering the wisdom of the master’s teachings, he’s still all dopey gravity and grinning stupidity, seemingly too dull a figure to take on the semi-active narrative role he’s soon made to assume. Drawing on Jay Parini’s novel of the same name, Hoffman’s film is potentially rich in dramatic situation, but it squanders these possibilities by making them dependant on the director’s underimagined central quartet. Unfolding in 1910, the final year of Tolstoy’s life, the film juxtaposes the developing consciousness of Bulgakov with an inheritance struggle between the writer’s wife, the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), and the novelist’s ardent follower, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), the latter of whom wants to award the posthumous rights to Tolstoy’s books to the Russian people rather than the writer’s family.

The Tolstoy in question here is not the celebrated middle-aged author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but the bearded saint who renounced non-didactic writing and private property and developed a legion of fanatical “Tolstoyans” congregating on his estate. As the most dedicated of these followers, Chertkov may genuinely believe in the ideals espoused by the writer, but—as embodied by Giamatti with arched eyebrows, a curled mustache, and a devil-red goatee—he unfolds as a stock villain, a man determined to situate himself in a position of power and who, finally, becomes so jealous of the writer that he even seeks to ban the novelist’s own wife from his deathbed. The film hits its rare stride in a handful of scenes between Tolstoy and Sofya, in which Hoffman successfully dramatizes both the love borne of a nearly 60-year marriage and the growing divide between the pair’s current ways of thinking.

But as the couple’s final split becomes increasingly inevitable, the Countess dissolves into a round of hysterics and the ruddy self-sufficiency that made her an equal contestant to Chertkov (however ingratiatingly communicated by Mirren), gives way to an easy desperation, climaxing in a half-hearted, and aesthetically dubious, suicide attempt. Christopher Plummer’s Tolstoy is a slightly more interesting proposition; rejecting the doctrinaire approach of his followers, he’s still able to reminisce fondly about sexual affairs, to laugh at himself and to register uncertainties, but he’s a relatively limited player in the proceedings and he’s too often reduced to the role of playing the old coot. By the time of the film’s protracted finale, in which the writer waits out his final days at a distant railroad station, the narrative momentum—hampered nearly as much by Hoffman’s labored pacing and perfunctory, if generically “pretty,” widescreen framings as by his conception of character—devolves into a waiting game, a deathbed watch that does justice to neither the great writer nor his legacy.

The final nail in the coffin comes courtesy of a laughably sentimental death sequence, which is especially insulting to Tolstoy since it trades in such easy emotion where one of the novelist’s great achievements was his forceful and utterly strange treatment of man’s final moments in this world. In the film’s climactic scene, Hoffman refuses to extend the same courtesy to his central subject that the War and Peace writer bestowed on his iconic characters Prince Andrei, Anna Karenina, and Ivan Ilyich. Still, given the project’s far more fundamental problems, this would have to count as one of the least of the filmmaker’s offenses. Buy Christopher Plummer - Biography - IMDb Christopher Plummer Biography Showing all 79 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (3) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (43) | Personal Quotes (26) | Salary (1) Overview (4) 5' 10½" (1.79 m) Mini Bio (1) Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario.

He is the only child of Isabella Mary (Abbott), a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University, and John Orme Plummer, who sold securities and stocks. He is a great-grandson of John Abbott, who was Canada's third Prime Minister (from 1891 to 1892), and a great-great-great-grandson of Anglican clergyman John Bethune. He has Scottish, English, and Anglo-Irish ancestry. Plummer was raised in Senneville, Quebec, by Montreal. Until the 2009 Academy Awards were announced, it could be said about Plummer that he was the finest actor of the post-World War II period to fail to get an Academy Award. In that, he was following in the footsteps of the late great John Barrymore , whom Plummer so memorably portrayed on Broadway in a one-man show that brought him his second Tony Award. In 2010, Plummer finally got an Oscar nod for his portrayal of another legend, Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009).

Two years later, the first paragraph of his obituary was written when the 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest person in Academy history to win an Oscar. He won for playing a senior citizen who comes out as gay after the death of his wife in the movie Beginners (2010). As he clutched his statuette, the debonaire thespian addressed it thusly: "You're only two years older than me darling, where have you been all of my life?" Plummer then told the audience that at birth, "I was already rehearsing my Academy acceptance speech, but it was so long ago mercifully for you I've forgotten it." The Academy Award was a long time in coming and richly deserved. Aside from the youngest member of the Barrymore siblings (which counted Oscar-winners Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore in their number), Christopher Plummer is the premier Shakespearean actor to come out of North America in the 20th century. He was particularly memorable as Hamlet, Iago and Lear, though his Macbeth opposite Glenda Jackson was -- and this was no surprise to him due to the famous curse attached to the "Scottish Play" -- a failure.

Plummer also has given many fine portrayals on film, particularly as he grew older and settled down into a comfortable marriage with his third wife Elaine. He thanked her from the stage during the 2012 Oscar telecast, quipping that she "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for coming to my rescue every day of my life." Like another great stage actor, Richard Burton , the younger Plummer failed to connect with the screen in a way that would make him a star. Dynamic on stage, the charisma failed to transfer through the lens onto celluloid. Burton's early film career, when he was a contract player at 20th Century-Fox, failed to ignite despite his garnering two Oscar nominations early on. He did not become a superstar until the mid-1960s, after hooking up with Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Cleopatra (1963). It was Liz whom he credited with teaching him how to act on film. Christopher Plummer never made it as a leading man in films. Perhaps if he had been born earlier, and acted in the studio system of Hollywood's golden age, he could have been carefully groomed for stardom.

As it was he shared the English stage actors' disdain -- and he was equally at home in London as he was on the boards of Broadway or on-stage in his native Canada -- for the movies, which did not help him in that medium, as he has confessed. As he aged, Plummer excelled at character parts. He was always a good villain, this man who garnered kudos playing Lucifer on Broadway in Archibald Macleish 's Pulitzer Prize-winning "J.B.". Though he likely always be remembered as "Captain Von Trapp" in the atomic bomb-strength blockbuster The Sound of Music (1965) (a film he publicly despised until softening his stance in his 2008 autobiography "In Spite of Me"), his later film work includes such outstanding performances as the best cinema Sherlock Holmes--other than Basil Rathbone -- in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), his iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A Beautiful Mind (2001), and as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009).

It was this last role that finally brought him recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, when he was nominated as Best Actor in a supporting role. Plummer remains one of the most respected and honored actors performing in the English language. He's won two Emmy Awards out of six nominations stretching 46 years from 1959 and 2005, and one Genie Award in five nominations from 1980 to 2004. For his stage work, Plummer has racked up two Tony Awards on six nominations, the first in 1974 as Best Actor (Musical) for the title role in "Cyrano" and the second in 1997, as Best Actor (Play), in "Barrymore". Surprisingly, he did not win (though he was nominated) for his masterful 2004 performance of "King Lear", which he originated at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and brought down to Broadway for a sold-out run.

His other Tony nominations show the wide range of his talent, from a 1959 nod for the Elia Kazan -directed production of Macleish's "J.B." to recognition in 1994 for Harold Pinter 's "No Man's Land", with a 1982 Best Actor (Play) nomination for his "Iago" in William Shakespeare 's "Othello". He continues to be a very in-demand character actor in prestigious motion pictures. If he were English rather than Canadian, he'd have been knighted long ago. (In 1968, he was awarded Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor and one which required the approval of the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II.) If he lived in the company town of Los Angeles rather than in Connecticut, he likely would have several more Oscar nominations before winning his first for "The Last Station". As it is, as attested to in his witty and well-written autobiography, Christopher Plummer has been amply rewarded in life.

In 1970, Plummer - a self-confessed 43-year-old "bottle baby" - married his third wife, dancer Elaine Taylor , who helped wean him off his dependency on alcohol. They live happily with their dogs on a 30-acre estate in Weston, Connecticut. Although he spends the majority of his time in the United States, he remains a Canadian citizen. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood Spouse (3) Rich smooth voice Trivia (43) Became a father for the first time at age 27 when his first [now ex] wife Tammy Grimes gave birth to their daughter Amanda Michael Plummer, aka Amanda Plummer , on March 23, 1957. He was awarded the Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award by The Players in 1997. He was awarded the CC (Companion of the Order of Canada) in the 1968 Queen's Honours List for his services to drama. Grew up in the village of Senneville, Québec, Canada. Is the great-grandson of former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott.

On April 22, 2002, he was awarded the first Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre by the Roundabout Theatre. His The Sound of Music (1965) co-star Julie Andrews was among those in attendance. His first paying role was in "Machina Infernale" (The Infernal Machine) by Jean Cocteau , in which he worked with another young Montreal actor, William Shatner . The two were reunited years later when they both appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Received an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Western Ontario on June 8, 2004. Schoolmates with jazz piano master Oscar Peterson . Has won two Tony Awards: in 1974, as Best Actor (Musical), playing the title role in "Cyrano", and in 1997, as Best Actor (Play), playing the title role of John Barrymore in "Barrymore".

He has also been nominated for the Tony four other times: as Best Actor (Dramatic), in 1959 for "J.B.", and as Best Actor (Play), in 1982 for Shakespeare's "Othello", in 1994 for "No Man's Land", and in 2004 for Shakespeare's "King Lear". He and his daughter Amanda Plummer both received Emmy Award nominations in 2005. She won, he did not. Trained to become a concert pianist before turning his attention to acting. Was actually born on December 13, 1929, although most publications usually state his birthday as December 13, 1927. Is only thirteen years older than Charmian Carr , who played his daughter in The Sound of Music (1965). Is one of 115 people invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in 2007. Turned down the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson 's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and admits to regretting that decision. Has worked with two Spider-Mans.

First he worked with Nicholas Hammond in The Sound of Music (1965), and later with Andrew Garfield in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). He and daughter Amanda Plummer have both appeared in adaptation of Stephen King novels. Amanda appeared in Needful Things (1993), while Christopher appeared in Dolores Claiborne (1995). Has played Christian in a television production of "Cyrano de Bergerac", opposite José Ferrer , and later played Cyrano himself. In the former role, he performed the translation by Brian Hooker . In the latter, he performed the translation by Anthony Burgess , which he personally selected Burgess to write. Is the only actor from The Sound of Music (1965) to meet the real Maria Von Trapp in Vermont as a child. Received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario in 1998 (charter member). Has played the title role in Hamlet at Elsinore (1964), appearing with Michael Caine , who played Hamlet's closest friend Horatio. Caine later said that he had never truly understood Hamlet until he saw Plummer playing the role.

At age 82, he is the oldest person to receive an Academy Award. Is one of four consecutive Oscar winners in the Best Supporting Actor category whose name begins with Chris, the other actors being Christian Bale and Christoph Waltz (who won twice). Both he and his daughter, Amanda Plummer , have played in Jean Anouilh 's "The Lark", he appeared on Broadway in 1955 and she appeared in Stratford in 2005. Is one of nine actors to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar, Emmy and Tony); the others in chronological order are Thomas Mitchell , Melvyn Douglas , Paul Scofield , Jack Albertson , Jason Robards , Jeremy Irons , Al Pacino , and Geoffrey Rush .

In 2012, he became the 21st performer to have received the Triple Crown of Acting: the 1974 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical ("Cyrano") and the 1997 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play ("Barrymore"), the 1977 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series ( Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976)) and the 1994 Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance ( Madeline (1989)), and the 2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor ( Beginners (2010)). Cites Jean Renoir 's La Grande Illusion (1937) as the film that has moved him to tears more often than any other during his lifetime. Longtime resident of Fairfield County's Weston, Connecticut. [May 2007] Is one of 11 actors to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance.

The others in chronological order are Geoffrey Rush for Shine (1996), Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004), Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (2005), Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men (2007), Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012), Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008), Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009), Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010) and J.K. Simmons for Whiplash (2014). Christopher Plummer's mother Isabella was a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University after her divorce from John Orme Plummer who sold stocks in Toronto and never lived in Montreal. In his memoir "In Spite of Myself" (2008), he writes that his mother was doubly disgraced for an upper-class woman in the 1930s, being both divorced and having to go out of work. This explains why he was born in Toronto, and grew up in Montreal.

He and his father did not meet until Christopher was age 17. Is a cousin of actor Nigel Bruce . Bruce was best known for playing Dr. John Watson, and Plummer went on to play Sherlock Holmes. Although he played Alec Guinness 's son in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), he was only fifteen years his junior in real life. His great-uncle (paternal grandmother's brother) was F.B. Fetherstonhaugh (Frederick Barnard Fetherstonhaugh), a patent lawyer and agent who founded the patent agency Fetherstonhaugh and Company. He was awarded the 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Performance for "Barrymore" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California. He was awarded the 1999 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Lead Actor in a Play for "Barrymore" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Has English, Scottish, Northern Irish, distant French-Canadian, and Swiss-French ancestry. Speaks English and French fluently, from his bilingual upbringing in Senneville, Quebec.

Personal Quotes (26) [why he prefers playing evil characters] The devil is more interesting than God. Unless you can surround yourself with as many beautiful things as you can afford, I don't think life has very much meaning. I'm bored with questions about acting. [on working with Dame Julie Andrews ] Working with her is like being hit over the head with a Valentine's card. [on Franchot Tone , who starred onstage with him in "The Petrified Forest"] His sense of humor, as one might guess, was seemingly self-deprecating, drawn always from this inexplicable inner torment. These vulnerable qualities were to make his Chekovian performances ("Uncle Vanya" and "A Moon for the Misbegotten"), both of whom I later saw, so memorable - a rare combination of lightness and poignancy... I saw in him someone I could perhaps one day aspire to; not the hidden sad, pained man that was part of Franchot but the part he couldn't conceal, no matter how hard he tried, the part that was refined, noble and infinitely kind. [on working with Michael Langham] Hamlet can sound self-pitying.

He's always whining, something being rotten in Denmark and the world so awful. To get over that, Michael suggested that because Hamlet himself had a large intellect, that he turned those complaining moments into a kind of wonderment and would analyze everything as a fresh discovery. It was a superb way of getting rid of the danger of self-pity, and an astounding piece of direction because it was valuable throughout the play. [on working with Michael Langham] When I did "Henry V", he changed my life. Really owe my career to Michael. [on being asked whether he had made his peace with his most famous film The Sound of Music (1965)] Oh, God no. [on the enduring appeal of The Sound of Music (1965)] Yeah, it drives me nuts. It has nothing to do with the movie, it's just a relentless pursuing of this film that goes on and on and I've gone on and on, far above and beyond it and then to be reminded of it, God almighty what is the matter with people? Too many people in the world are unhappy with their lot. And then they retire and they become vegetables.

I think retirement in any profession is death, so I'm determined to keep crackin'. [2011, a revised opinion on The Sound of Music (1965)] People were unnaturally sentimental about the film. So I always gave it a tough time. But a few years ago, I went to an Easter party and had to watch the damn thing with these kids. I was a prisoner! And then I thought, it's got everything - the lovely songs, the Nazis and the nuns and the kids. It's timeless and I'm grateful for it. [on receiving a Screen Actors Guild award for Beginners (2010)] I just can't tell you what fun I've had being a member of the world's second oldest profession. When they honor you, it's like being lit by the holy grail. [on the ability to convey a sense of pathos] Very few people have it naturally - Chaplin, Brando. It's a gift. But you can learn how to fake it. Ewan (McGregor) doesn't act, he inhabits a role. And, of course, he makes you not act and inhabit the role, like it's a competition. I owe that to him.

As T.S. Eliot measures his life with coffee spoons, so I measure mine by the plays I've been in. I'm too vague to measure any other way. The theatre is not for sissies. It separates the men from the boys. [a portion of his Oscar acceptance speech for Beginners (2010)] I would happily share this award with [ Ewan McGregor ] if I had any decency but I don't. [to his Oscar statuette at the 2012 Academy Awards] You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life? [on cell-phones ringing during a live performance] The only thing to do is to say something like "I'll get it." The audience gives you applause because they hate it too. I think many of today's politicians take a typical CEO mentality when it comes to the arts. It's anathema to them. It's the last thing they think of when it comes to funding; it's way down at the bottom of the list. That is unconscionable. It's so stupid and narrow-minded. They don't realize. It's all about political manoeuvring.

Television is certainly more skilfully handled [now] than it was then. There are certain things, like Sherlock (2010), which is enchanting and perfectly right for a younger audience. And the truly wonderful thing about it is that it is not disloyal to the original. There's a Conan Doyle feeling about it - something that Doyle would have written for this age. Benedict [Cumberbatch] is a superb actor. I love his beats. Those are rare things that happen marvelously in this medium. [on Mike Wallace and his impact on public affairs programming] He had a lot to do with making it dangerous. He understood media. He understood how you could break down a person in front of a camera. It's a cruel medium. You have to deal with it skillfully. He was not a horrid man. I met him. He was very likable and very bright. But he knew it was a cruel medium and that it was an instant medium. It's now; it's in the moment. You can't rehearse it; you can't be glib. That's really what television is about.

It's about what's happening in the streets, all the awful wars, all the awful things that are happening. The writing was superior [in the '50s]. But then we had all the best writers, Horton Foote and others, writing for this brash new medium. It was as exciting as hell. It was an adventure. Television has become a little glossy. A little too comfortable. I was much a part of live television in the '50s. There was something terribly honest about live television and terribly dangerous and terribly risky. You were bound to learn your lines without bumping into each other, which we did a lot of. [observation, 2014] I'm thrilled to be around still, and I don't want to blow my horn, but I've done so many more parts than Barrymore ever got a chance to do. That Barrymore wasn't able - or willing to show his true range is one of the great missed opportunities of the theatrical stage. A terrible waste. [on turning down the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy] I don't know why I turned it down. I think it had to do with spending four years in New Zealand.

There's other countries I want to visit before I croak. But Ian McKellen got the role and he was fantastic in it. He played the role really warm and kind and I hate the son-of-a-bitch! Salary (1) Jay Parini - News NEWS 23 June 2010 5:25 AM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news » Chicago – Michael Hoffman is not a director renowned for operatic drama. The closest he ever got to staging Shakespeare onscreen was in his problematic 1999 adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Emotional outbursts in a Hoffman picture are often tinged with offbeat humor, a fact well-illustrated by his his under-appreciated 1991 comedy “ Soapdish .” “ The Last Station ” may initially seem like the kind of picture dripping with self-conscious prestige that’s predictably unveiled at Oscar season. Based on the novel by Jay Parini , the film stars Christopher Plummer as legendary Russian author Leo Tolstoy during the last year of his life. His belief in pacifism and his denouncement of materialism has inspired him to “donate” his life’s work to the general public.

While Tolstoy’s fanatical friend and disciple, Chertkov ( Paul Giamatti ), adamantly supports his decision, Sofya is furiously against it, fearing that her husband’s idealism has drifted into madness. » - adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman) 15 June 2010 7:11 AM, PDT | Screen Anarchy | See recent Screen Anarchy news » Michael Hoffman 's The Last Station is a great example of the kind of Hollywood production that frustrates for what it could have been. Adapted from Jay Parini 's fictional biography of the last days of Tolstoy, the venerated Russian novelist famous for writing Anna Karenina and War and Peace , it's a handsomely mounted period piece with a talented cast. It means well, it's more than watchable and definitely stands up to repeat viewing. But it's so intent on not committing to any deeper exploration of Tolstoy's life and work it ends up feeling annoyingly vacant, reducing decades of radical thought and political criticism to a general riff on 'life goes on'.

The film gets under way with Tolstoy's faithful secretary Vladimir Chertkov ( Paul Giamatti , Cold Souls , Shoot 'Em Up , The Illusionist ) under house arrest for his master's outspoken views on the state's abuses of power. He hires wide-eyed acolyte Valentin Bulgakov ( James McAvoy , » 20 February 2010 4:06 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news » The story of the last unedifying days of Leo Tolstoy deal with the battle between the writer's wife and his disciple for his legacy Based on a novel by Jay Parini , The Last Station deals with the somewhat unedifying last months of the 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy ( Christopher Plummer ) that concluded with his public death at the remote southern Russia railway station of Astapovo in 1910, the end of the line and the last station of the cross.

During this time his wife Sofya ( Helen Mirren ) battles for his soul and the copyright of his valuable works with the writer's manipulative disciple Vladimir Chertkov ( Paul Giamatti ), who regards himself as the guardian of the great man's reputation and wants the money from War and Peace to be used to advance the cause of universal love and passive resistance. Their battles are observed and recorded by Tolstoy's new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, played by » - Helen Mirren, Philip French 19 February 2010 4:15 AM, PST | WeAreMovieGeeks.com | See recent WeAreMovieGeeks.com news » The turbulent marriage between Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofya has been turned into an actor’s showcase in The Last Station . Outstanding, Oscar-nominated performances by Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer lift this stagy period piece about the end of the famed Russian author’s life above its highbrow trappings and the result is an emotional, crowd-pleasing drama.

One does not have to have read ‘ War and Peace ’ or ‘ Anna Karenina ’ (I certainly haven’t) to appreciate Writer/Director Michael Hoffman ’s excellent biopic as it’s not a film about Tolstoy’s inspirations and doesn’t inject trivia from his novels into the screenplay a la Shakespeare In Love . Instead, The Last Station focuses on an episode near the end of his life when, as a crusty old idealist, Tolstoy was conflicted between the desires of his sycophantic followers and those of his long-suffering, high-maintenance wife Sofya. The movie » - Tom 10 February 2010 9:41 AM, PST | EmpireOnline | See recent EmpireOnline news » Talk about the little film that could: The Last Station , the story of the final days of Russian author Tolstoy, has managed to get itself Oscar-nominated not once but twice, with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer both nominated.

And you can get a taste of what landed them the nods below.The film sees Valentin Bulgakov ( James McAvoy ) arrive to act as secretary to the aging Leo Tolstoy (Plummer), who is in the last year of his life and has decided, as part of his commitment to a non-material life, to leave his works and fortune to the Russian people. His wife Sofya (Mirren) is less than happy with this decision, and does everything she can to try to stop him.It's all directed by Michael Hoffman , based on the novel by Jay Parini . The Last Station is out on February 19, so you can see what all the fuss is about then. » 5 February 2010 7:00 AM, PST | Pastemagazine.com | See recent PasteMagazine news » Release Date: Jan. 15 Director: Michael Hoffman Writers: Michael Hoffman (Screenplay), Jay Parini (Novel) Starring: James McAvoy , Christopher Plummer , Helen Mirren , Paul Giamatti Cinematographer: Sebastian Edschmid Studio/Run Time: Egoli Tossell Film. 110 mins.

Tolstoy’s final war Despite its wandering backstory and revisionist depiction of a germinating religious movement helmed by one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, The Last Station features brilliant performances by both Christopher Plummer as the aged Leo Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya, his long suffering wife and working partner of 48 years. » 19 January 2010 9:25 PM, PST | CinemaSpy | See recent CinemaSpy news » For a film about the last days of Leo Tolstoy , The Last Station is remarkably light on its feet. With nimble acting from all involved and a script that walks the tightrope between comedy and tragedy, Michael Hoffman 's historical drama explores love and loss with humor and heart. Though the film is ostensibly about the Russian writer, it is told from the perspective of Valentin Bulgakov ( James McAvoy , Wanted ), a young devotee of Tolstoy. Most people are only familiar with Tolstoy for his weighty tomes War and Peace and Anna Karenina , but The Last Station focuses on a different man.

The aging Tolstoy ( Christopher Plummer , The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ) has left fiction behind in favor of spiritual and philosophical writings that have inspired their own religious movement. Tolstoy calls for a life that abandons sexuality and worldly possessions, a belief that terrifies his wife, the Countess Sofya Tolstoy ( Helen Mirren , » 15 January 2010 3:00 PM, PST | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news » " The Last Station " has already made a big splash this awards season, nabbing major nominations with a couple critically lauded performances from thespian royalty. Both Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer have been recognized by the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild for their roles in the film, and Oscar nods seem all but assured. On Friday (January 15), moviegoers will finally get a chance to see what all the fuss is about when the film arrives in theaters. Plummer plays legendary Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy , who creates his own religion, renounces his worldly possessions and stops sleeping with his wife.

Mirren, as his wife, naturally doesn't take too kindly to these changes after almost fifty years of marriage. Here's what else you should know about the film. Nobody Wanted to Make the Movie Adapted from Jay Parini 's book, " The Last Station : A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year," the » - Eric Ditzian Opening tomorrow, in limited release, is writer/director Michael Hoffman ’s The Last Station . As you might imagine from a cast featuring Helen Mirren , Christopher Plummer , James McAvoy , Paul Giamatti and Kerry Condon …it’s filled with great performances. The Last Station is a historical drama based on Jay Parini ’s novel about Leo Tolstoy ’s final years. It’s focuses on Tolstoy’s struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things. While he’s trying to balance everything and continue his work, the Countess Sofya ( Helen Mirren ), his wife and muse, uses every trick of seduction on her husband’s loyal disciple, whom she believes was the person responsible for Tolstoy signing a new will that leaves his work and property to the Russian people.

To help promote the film, I recently got to sit down with James McAvoy , Paul Giamatti and Kerry Condon , » - Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub 14 January 2010 12:00 PM, PST | avclub.com | See recent The AV Club news » Although it feigns literary prestige, Michael Hoffman ’s The Last Station , a chronicle of Leo Tolstoy ’s last days, is little more than a gilded trifle, though it offers its share of light enjoyments. Adapting Jay Parini ’s novel, Hoffman ( Soapdish ) zeroes in on the battle between Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya ( Helen Mirren ) and his chief disciple, Vladimir Chertkov ( Paul Giamatti ). In his latter years, Tolstoy turned away from writing the novels that remain the foundation of Russian literature and toward promoting a utopian philosophy incorporating elements of Christianity and anarchism.

But for Hoffman, the substance of Tolstoy’s beliefs » 13 January 2010 3:00 PM, PST | Movieline | See recent Movieline news » Turning a fabulously operatic, thematically replete true-life tale into a frosted slice of dinner theatrics, The Last Station conveys nothing more convincingly than its own self-regard. The story of Leo Tolstoy 's last days, in exile from his own home, his wife, and possibly the social movement he spearheaded toward the end of his life, rivals any the great novelist could have dreamt up for himself. And yet The Last Station , adapted from Jay Parini 's 1990 book by writer/director Michael Hoffman , seems to have been mounted by everyone involved like it was their own private troika -- a period vehicle which might carry them to award glory, or the set of their next self-regarding costume piece.

» 12 January 2010 6:30 AM, PST | TribecaFilm.com | See recent Tribeca Film news » Veteran actor Christopher Plummer has been in our global consciousness since he played Captain Von Trapp in 1965 Best Picture winner The Sound of Music . Since then, in addition to near-constant work in the theatre, he has played Rudyard Kipling , King Herod, Sherlock Holmes , and Mike Wallace , in addition to a seminal role in Twelve Monkeys and countless narration gigs. (That voice!) 2009 may have been the busiest year of Plummer's later film career, with lead roles in both The Last Station and Terry Gilliam 's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus , in addition to his voice work in both Pixar's smash hit Up and Tim Burton 's sleeper 9. With The Last Station , Plummer tackles another iconic character: the Russian author - and charismatic leader of an anarchist movement - Leo Tolstoy .

In writer/director Michael Hoffman 's adaptation of the historical novel by Jay Parini of the same name, Tolstoy is at » 6 January 2010 2:31 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news » Leo Tolstoy is widely considered in the west to be the greatest writer of all time and this year sees the release of a film, The Last Station , to mark the centenary of his death. So why is his native Russia lukewarm about the literary genius? For Tolstoy fans, 2010 is set to be a wonderful year. One hundred years after the great Russian novelist fled from his country estate outside Moscow – dying three weeks later in a small provincial railway station – the world is gearing up to celebrate him. In Germany and the Us there are fresh translations of Anna Karenina ; in Cuba and Mexico Tolstoy bookfairs; worldwide, a new black- and-white documentary. Dug up from Russia's archives and restored, the ­ original cinema footage shows an elderly Tolstoy playing with his poodles and vaulting energetically on his horse.

Next month also sees the UK premiere of The Last Station , an » - Luke Harding 4 January 2010 2:58 PM, PST | Film Independent | See recent Film Independent news » Writer/director Michael Hoffman has made a diverse bunch of movies, from the quirky comedy Soapdish to the romantic comedy One Fine Day to his take on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . Now he has tackled the final days of Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station , based on the novel by Jay Parini . It took Hoffman nearly two decades for the stars to align on the picture, which was originally to star Meryl Streep as Sofya Tolstoy and Anthony Hopkins as the Russian novelist during his final days when he and his wife fought bitterly over his loyalty to his cult of followers and the fate of his estate. When financing for the film came through from Germany and Russia, Hoffman was able to assemble Academy Award ® winner Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer as his leads with James McAvoy as Tolstoy's secretary, a key character in the film.

Although filming in Russia, » - maint Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Last Station [Blu-ray] The Last Station [Blu-ray] 4.2 out of 5 stars 112 Price:$14.39+ Free shipping with Amazon Prime Your rating( Clear )Rate this item 182 people found this helpful 5.0 out of 5 starsThe Last Station - Film Review ByOne More Optionon February 20, 2010 The film "The Last Station" focuses on the last few months of the novelist and writer Leo Tolstoy's family and social life. It stars Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as his wife Sophya, James McAvoy as Tolstoy's new personal secretary Valentin, Kerry Condon as Valentin's charming and aggressive love interest, and Paul Giamatti as the leader of a group of "Tolstoyans" who wish to widely promote Tolstoy's ideals. The film is set in early 20th century Russia, before the harsh realities of the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917 and thereafter (Tolstoy died in 1910).

It was a time in history when Socialism was still an untried idealized conceptual form of government, and Tolstoy in his final years became more "radical" in his political, religious, and social philosophies. The film raises 2 universal questions: 1) What do you do when the love of your life is in conflict with your highest priority ideals? And how does your treatment or mistreatment of the people closest to you, who have loved and cared for you the most, reflect on the quality of your ideals? ~Spoilers Ahead ~ In the final months of Tolstoy's life, he abandoned his wife of 48 years, Sophya. Before Sophya and Leo married, Sophya knew of his many sexual escapades he shared with her in his diaries. She knew he had fathered a child with one of the servant girls in his household. Nevertheless, she loved him and married him, giving him 13 children, 5 of whom died in childhood. The movie implies the question: At what point does your life become more than a solitary pursuit?

After how many years of good treatment and co-dependence with those close to you does your life necessarily and deservedly become considerate of more than just your own priorities? Where should your deference be? In 2009, it was widely reported that a British couple, both 98 years old, divorced. When a friend of mine heard of the story, she said, "What was the point?" It's a fascinating question. When do we ever stop wanting to define ourselves, our relationships, and our boundaries? James McAvoy's character Valentin is a young, romantic idealist who wishes to promote Tolstoy's ideals. He runs into a young woman named Masha, who is less interested in layers of idealism, moral laws, and controls, and is more interested in physical and emotional feelings and connections. She quickly disarms his protests by being sexually aggressive with him. His ideals lose some of their zeal and absolutism when confronted with Masha's ability to naturally please him. The film parallels Valentin's young love story with Tolstoy's love story with Sophya.

Valentin is given a rare view, at a young age, to watch "ideals" clash with "love." Valentin, living in the house with Tolstoy, is able to watch a "great man" who is leading a "revolutionary" movement. He's able to watch how Tolstoy's focus on "the greater good" appears to harm and betray his wife, whose ideals are in conflict with his. The film implies that Sophya did more than cleaning house and raising children while Tolstoy wrote. She tempered his novels' dialogues and added exceptional advice to his female portrayals. She transcribed and edited his major novels. She was not simply his wife, she was a co-creator of his greatest artworks. The film is based on a 1990 novel "The Last Station" by Jay Parini. The title refers to many things, including the fact that Tolstoy died at a train station, fleeing his wife and estate. The title also implies the question: How will your actions in the last station of your life define your legacy? What will your last station leave behind for your immediate social circle and your community in general? The screenplay is tight, moving, and never circuitous.

The direction is solid and never distracting. The actors are excellent. I've heard the most praise for Mirren and McAvoy, but I found Plummer's and Condon's performances to be equally excellent. Plummer is in top form, less affected than in his younger roles. The film is a perfect length and the roles are not drawn as too overwrought or too "good" vs. "evil." We see the conflicting ideals of each of the main characters and we can easily understand the warfare that develops when their strong boundaries don't wish to co-exist. I was hesitant to give this film a "number of stars" rating. But I appreciate it when other reviewers place some measurable rating on the films they review. When trying to come up with a correct number, I asked myself: "What was wrong with this film?" And I couldn't think of anything. It's difficult for viewers to leave this film feeling good. This is not a film with a "feel good" ending. It's a real story about complex people who in the end desperately didn't want the same things. There are no clear winners in the final act of Tolstoy's life's story.

But over time, I'm glad the work of his whole life has shined brighter and more prominently than his final chapter. 43 people found this helpful 3.0 out of 5 starsWar and Peace ByKeris Nineon February 24, 2010 If you've read War and Peace and Anna Karenina or any other works by Tolstoy, the idea of a film about the great Russian author's fascinating latter years as he disavowed his earlier writings for deep religious principles and social reform is an intriguing prospect, but I'm sure there can't be too many others similarly thrilled by the notion. It is a strange subject to make a film around, there's no denying that, and indeed The Last Station - based around the struggle over the publishing rights of his entire works between Tolstoy's favourite disciple Chertkov (who wants them to be given freely to the people) and the Countess Sofya (who believes they belong to the family and herself who have supported the Count over the years) - isn't the most dramatically thrilling of situations.

To add variety to the constant back and forth battles, showdowns and shouting matches between Chertkov and the Countess over the terms of Tolstoy's will, there is a conventional romance thrown in between naïve new disciple Bulgakov and the rather more worldly Masha on Tolstoy's commune. Despite the fact that nearly all the situations take place around him between the other protagonists, Tolstoy however rightly retains the strongest position in the film, a fact that can be attributed almost entirely to a convincing performance by Christopher Plummer. While performances are equally as good elsewhere from Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti and John Sessions (particularly Mirren), it's hard not to see them as indeed "performances" by well-known and respected actors, whereas Plummer completely inhabits his role and convinces as Tolstoy, putting real character behind the man's revolutionary ascetic, pacifistic ideals.

While it never really explores these beliefs and sentiments in any great detail (go read Tolstoy's later works if you are interested, they are worthwhile and, ironically, out of copyright in English translation they can now all be downloaded for free from Gutenberg), it does go some way towards making The Last Station a little more meaningful and enjoyable as a film. Review: The Last Station - Reviews Reviews Find Theaters and Movie Times or 4.0 Stars The Last Station | Directed by Michael Hoffman | Written by Hoffman and Jay Parini | with Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, Paul Giamatti, and James McAvoy | Sony Pictures Classics | 112 minutes Traversing the spectrum from farce to tragedy, Michael Hoffman's magnificent The Last Station suggests what the story of Count Leo Tolstoy's final days would look like if Chekhov had told it. (Hoffman adapted the complex and literate screenplay from Jay Parini's novel.) The movie is set in 1910, where, on Tolstoy's rural estate, Yasnaya Polyana, the great man (Christopher Plummer) and his wife, Sofia (Helen Mirren), play out the finale of a passionate, embattled marriage.

Her arch-enemy is Tolstoy's friend and colleague Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), who has turned the author's proletarian Christian teachings, which include celibacy, into a political movement played out on the nearby "Tolstoyan" commune, and who has nearly persuaded him to turn over the rights to his work to the Russian people. The pompous, strait-laced, self-serving Chertkov and the vibrant, sensuous, complicated Sofia — who feels he has alienated her from her husband's affections while scheming to disinherit her children — snipe at each other in their vastly different styles. He shrinks from any behavior that he sees as unseemly; she emotes all over the estate like an unmoored character from one of Tolstoy's novels, eavesdropping on a conference about his will from outside a window and throwing herself into a pond when her husband walks out on her.

(Fed up with her displays at one point, Tolstoy suggests that what she needs is a Greek chorus.) And the figure both adversaries seize on as an ally and spy is the naive, earnest young Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), whom Chertkov engages as Tolstoy's private secretary and Sofia strives to co-opt as soon as he appears at Yasnaya Polyana. It's impossible to imagine a quartet of actors more splendidly suited to play these roles. Plummer, an actor whose theatrical command and expansive warmth are legendary on stage (most recently in the Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind), has never had a movie role as juicy as this one. He's so completely, instinctually right as Tolstoy that he seems to be bringing his entire career to bear. Giamatti, who has made a specialty of playing a wide range of corseted malcontents, may never have been wittier (and he's certainly never had better lines).

In the crucial role of Valentin — whose coming of age coincides with his discovery that the love his idol Tolstoy preaches is vital and life-affirming rather than (as it is in Chertkov's version) chilly and pious — McAvoy begins in the camp of Shakespeare's bumbling young clownish lovers and finds a depth of compassion in Valentin's love for his mentor. And Mirren gives one of her towering performances as the countess. Sofia Tolstoy — a woman of uncontrollable feelings whose grandiloquent scenes are simultaneously high drama and piercingly real — is a character out of high comedy, the genre created to balance tragedy and farce. Mirren is both audaciously funny and heartbreaking.

Question: In a 2009 film James McAvoy plays the role of private secretary to whom, played by Christopher Plummer?
Answer: Leo Tolstoy