THE LAST STATION is a love story set during the last year
of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy
(Christopher Plummer) and his wife the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren).
Tolstoy, having rejected his title and embraced an ascetic life style, finds
himself increasingly at odds with Sofya. As his devoted disciple Vladimir
Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) urges him to sign a new will leaving the rights to his
work to the Russian people rather than his family, the conflict between husband
and wife grows to breaking point. The whole affair is witnessed by Tolstoy’s
new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), whose burgeoning love for the
beautiful and feisty Masha (Kerry Condon) is set against the waning love of
Tolstoy and Sofya.
A man at war within and without, Tolstoy, in his final days, makes a run for
peace on a train with his physician, his daughter and Bulgakov. Sofya and
Chertkov follow, but, too ill to continue, Tolstoy stops at the tiny railway
station at Astapovo. While hundreds camp outside awaiting hourly reports, it is
here, at a remote railway junction, that Leo Tolstoy finds the peace he has been
searching for.
Based on the 1990 biographical novel of the same name by Jay Parini.
A tale of two romances, one beginning, one near its end, THE LAST STATION is a
complex, funny, rich and emotional story about the difficulty of living with
love and the impossibility of living without it.