Word: sofya
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...instance, the publicity surrounding “The Last Station,” a film about Leo Tolstoy’s final days and his relationship with his wife Sofya (played by Helen Mirren) strongly evokes that of “The Queen,” the 2006 drama that also stars Mirren and also focuses on a short period in the life of an aging historical figure. I’m betting “The Last Station” will have a similar cinematic life trajectory as “The Queen,” which was nominated...
...only two years ago that Dame Helen Mirren was building up serious momentum in what was ultimately a successful Best Actress Oscar run for The Queen. Mirren is attracting similar raves this year as Leo Tolstoy's wife Countess Sofya in The Last Station. Aristocratic, yes, but the temperamental Countess Sofya is no Windsor. Heading into Golden Globes weekend with a Best Actress nomination, Mirren talked to TIME about gracious award speeches, fiery plate throwing and the half a night she spent in a brothel...
...could he stick with the vow of chastity when he's got Sofya around? Mirren makes her funny, irreverent and passionate. (Only she could pull off a seduction scene that includes clucking like a chicken.) Sofya has proved her devotion by bearing Leo 13 children and copying out his drafts of War and Peace by hand, six times. She's prone to manipulation, eavesdropping and temper. "I lost five children, why couldn't one of them have been you?" she snipes at their daughter Sasha (Anne-Marie Duff), who is in Chertkov's camp. Sofya is not generous. Yet Hoffman...
...sure of Tolstoy's preferences. Throughout the movie, he wavers between Chertkov's will and Sofya's, but he never displays complete conviction toward either. As he waffles, our perspective shifts accordingly. Is this a writer who believes in power to the people and doesn't want to be nagged by his selfish wife in his last days? Or a confused old man, susceptible to flattery and not up to his own standards of mental agility...
...best - and private - end is certainly affecting, and that's what Plummer gives us. By the time we get to the "Last Station" itself, the Astapovo railway station where Tolstoy died, Hoffman finally lets Valentin fade into the background and the focus rest on Leo and Sofya. What you carry away from the movie is the reminder that a deathbed is the place where the living stake their possession for the last time and then watch it evaporate in irrelevance. Not a bad end for an imperfect movie...