The Last Station (2009)

Hey, want to see a spineless guy be ineffectual? No? Even if he's cutie pie James McAvoy? Still no? Neither did the editors of The Last Station it would seem, as they abruptly and randomly cut from his scenes to those featuring Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren as Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofya every chance they get.

Not that I am blame them or the Oscar voters that nominated Mirren in the role. As adorable as McAvoy is making that hyper-earnest face with the veins popping out in his forehead, there's nothing to his character, his character's conflict, or the movie's central conflict (who will retain Tolstoy's copyright after his death). The movie is so stacked in Sofya's favour that even as Mirren (somewhat uncharacteristically) tears into Sofya's histrionics, it's impossible to root for Paul Giamatti and his moustache wax (though I dig that he carried around moustache wax).

Writer-director Michael Hoffman's has no aptitude for the small work on his hands: though the subject matter itself may be new to the viewer, he doesn't address it in any way that's fresh and ends up divorcing the characters from their supposed beliefs so rapidly that your head will spin. Ultimately, what you get out of the movie is directly related to what you get out of Plummer and Mirren's scenes. Fortunately, those scenes are delightful, much like Sebastian Edschmid's cinematography, which makes Russia in springtime look like an enchanted forest. B-

Now, where can I find a Russian tea set?