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Friday, March 5, 2010

Film / Film Reviews / News The Last Station: Plum role for Plummer

Posted By on Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 3:59 PM

station1

By Matt Brunson

THE LAST STATION

**1/2

DIRECTED BY Michael Hoffman

STARS Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer

Helen Mirren earned her fourth Academy Award nomination for The Last Station — she won the award for 2006's The Queen — so the real pleasure here is witnessing 80-year-old veteran Christopher Plummer finally score his first career nod. Alas, he's been tagged in the Best Supporting Actor category, meaning that anyone hoping this loose dramatization of the final chapter in the life of Leo Tolstoy will primarily center on the Russian author will be sorely disappointed to see him frequently shunted off to the sidelines.

Instead, most of the focus falls on Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy, winningly playing the naive outsider for the umpteenth time), a virginal lad who seeks to serve Tolstoy but finds himself caught in a power play between the writer's wife (Mirren) and his advisor (Paul Giamatti). The majority of the film is likable if rarely inspiring, but once the action moves from the Tolstoy estate to the railroad line for a grueling final half-hour, the picture suddenly feels as long as King Vidor's 3-1/2-hour screen adaptation of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

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