Movie Monthly: The Fight For Leo Tolstoy's Rights

The tussle over intellectual property rights has obvious contemporary resonance, even though the film is set exactly a hundred years ago in pre-revolutionary Russia. But although Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren as the volatile couple provide fireworks and humour, the theme is found wanting.

We meet ageing Count Leo Tolstoy – a sage-like Christopher Plummer, wearing a long white beard – surrounded by family and acolytes on his lavish country estate. Having earned international literary stardom, the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, is about to renounce his title, home and his tempestuous wife in favour of the Tolstoyan Movement that he founded to promote social equality and passive resistance. However, Tolstoy's wife Sofya, a fiery Dame Mirren, believes that after 48 years of marriage and 13 children the estate should fall to their family.

The conspiring leader of the Movement, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), fearing Sofya's influence and power over his affections, dispatches a naive Tolstonian Valentin Bulgakov (McAvoy, not altogether convincing in the part) to assist and spy on the author. However, Bulgakov's own loyalties are tested as Tolstoy starts confiding in him about his inner struggle to follow his own ideals and as Bulgakov himself embarks on an affair with the down-to-earth Masha (an assured Kerry Condon).

The production notes say that descendants of Tolstoy acted as advisers throughout the production and it's clear early on where writer-director Michael Hoffman's sympathies lie. Giamatti's moustach-twirling character is painted up as the arch villain of the piece, coming across as a conniving snake as he urges Tolstoy to leave his work “for the Russian people”. The goals of the movement, whatever they are, are only loosely touched on and in a way that is loaded with suspicion or, in the case of Bulgakov, deemed impossibly romantic.

The redeeming quality of The Last Station is the performances by Plummer and Mirren who are given free reign over the subject matter. Plummer's mumbling, grumbling, pensive performance, interspersed with moments of explosiveness and flashes of lucidity, gives a good sense of his character's inner turmoil. But it is Mirren who really lets rip, the one minute fainting and the next throwing the crockery around in a histrionic fit. In her quieter moments, she's also a master of the barbed put-down and bed-chamber playfulness. Fans of the two actors will get something from the film for the performances alone. That and the attractive period visuals, even if the story is a plod.

One last thing, much has been written about the appropriateness of Plummer's long white beard. There are a few snippets of original archive footage at the end of the film of Tolstoy and Sofya. And yes, Tolstoy had a big white beard typical of the era.

From Russia, to Ireland with Love and Savagery (out on 5 February distributor now says "at a later date to be confirmed"), a tale of forbidden love where spiritual ideals do battle with earthly desires. I haven't seen the film, but it sounds intriguing. It is 1969. Poet-cum-geologist Michael (Allan Hawco) travels from his native Newfoundland to Ireland’s west coast to study The Burren, a rugged landscape known for its limestone terraces. In a nearby village, he and a beautiful waitress named Cathleen (Irish actor Sarah Greene) are inescapably drawn to each other – although she is about to become a nun. Compounding Michael's problems the local townsfolk are determined to keep the two apart, even resorting to physical violence. Will Cathleen choose the love of a man or the love of God?