Movie Review: The Last Station

Ever eaten with the family of a significant other that constantly fights? Then you have a good idea of what watching “The Last Station” is like.

Everybody’s motivations are unclear — unless of course the person that dragged you there clues you in.

And sadly you won’t have the benefit of a drink to take the edge off the awkwardness on display in “The Last Station.”

It’s not especially hard to follow, but “The Last Station” doesn’t depict its characters’ motives well.

Dive verdict: 2.5 of 5 stars

It’s true that Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author whose last days are the impetus for the movie, was a complex man, drawn strongly to both sensuality and spirituality.

These facets of his personality come out strongly in novels such as the famously lengthy “War and Peace.”

His sycophant, the mustachioed Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) cajoles Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) into serving as messiah to a religious order with quasi-socialistic underpinnings and an emphasis on abstinence.

It’s an ideal that is quickly contravened by a disoriented Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) and his love interest, Kerry Condon’s saucy Masha, who both reside within a Tolstoyan commune near his estate.

Together they give the movie its R rating with a series of weirdly short and graphic sex scenes.

But the movie is dominated by Helen Mirren’s berserk performance of Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya.

This isn’t to say that Mirren doesn’t do a good job. Mirren definitely earned her Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

“The Last Station” boasts beautiful acting, but devolves into an Anglicized British period piece with over-the-top melodrama punctuated with moments of humor that brings levity to this convoluted, existential mess.

It’s a well-shot film with generally terrific acting, but the performances are uneven and often unnecessary.

It’s filled with too many actors to follow, forcing an oversimplification of a dying genius’s final days.