If you like Tolstoy and you think happy families are all alike, you should see the newly released film, The Last Station. Hell, you should even see it if you think happy families are as different and distinctive as unhappy families. It’s that good.
Christopher Plummer plays the aging Tolstoy, who was then the most famous and revered writer in the world, considered by many to be a saint. Some of his most devout followers lived on Russian communes, growing their own food and working for the greater good. You can already see the problem: Throw a few communes together and start nattering about “the people” and every loafer and charlatan and misfit shows up in leadership positions and then everything goes straight to hell. (I know this, since I came of age in the 60s and 70s and once lived in a commune for a month. I think somebody still owes me some rent money.)
Sonya, Tolstoy’s wife of 40-plus years, is played by Helen Mirren. All these years later, the world has decided her husband is a genius and a saint. Frankly, I can’t think of anything harder on a marriage. Who on earth wants to be married to a saint? If no man is a hero to his valet, you can pretty much assume the same thing about his wife. After a while, you get sick of hearing how wondrous and perfect he is, which has the effect of making you want to burst all their dippy little balloons by announcing a list of his most egregious faults. (Or so I imagine. I am fortunate enough not to be married to a saint.)
Anyway, at this point in their lives, the Tolstoy family is very unhappy in its own way, with communal hangers-on trying to siphon money from his novels’ copyrights to “the people” and change his will. Sonya takes umbrage about her family’s potential disinheritance — and believe me, this is a woman who takes to umbrage quite well. She screams, she shoots a pistol, she charms, she seduces, she tries to drown herself. She would be an utterly ridiculous and unsympathetic character if she weren’t played so brilliantly and vehemently by Mirren.
Christopher Plummer, on the other hand, manages to make the saintly Tolstoy very human, very malleable to his followers, still in love with a wife he can no longer bear to be around.
Put it all together, and you have a wonderful depiction of a once-happy marriage in shreds, an idealistic social movement turning venal and petty, and a time in history where a brilliant author’s life was chronicled by the media as if he were Brad Pitt. In a season of shallow romantic comedies about people you’d never want to meet, whose bon-bon lives get wrapped up and beribboned in 90 minutes, here’s a movie of complex and outsized characters willing to chew the scenery and burn down the house, since love is worth the madness.
(Copyright 2010 by Ruth Pennebaker)
Read one of my favorite posts about Confessions of a Book-Club Hater
Wow. “Still in love with a wife he can no longer bear to be around” sums up some marriages today!
Did you know Tolstoy and his wife read each other’s diaries?
The movie got mixed reviews here, Ruth, but I was going to go see it anyway, since I would happily pay big bucks to see either Plummer or Mirren read their grocery lists aloud. Now you have made me want to see the film on its own merits. Thank you!
PS: Nowadays, I guess they would be reading each other’s blogs!
Hmmm. Guess you’d need to be pret-ty careful about what you wrote! Most of us would be complaining about spouses in there…
Reading each other’s diaries. Wow! Just yesterday, a friend discovered his lady friend, with whom he’s been courting since April, has been secretly reading his cell phone bills. She revealed it by trying to start an argument over him having an hour-long conversation with his ex-wife in July concerning their twelve year old son. Is nothing sacrosanct? I must tell him about Tolstoy.
Ruth, now I really want to see this movie. I love Helen Mirren because she is a very true actress, plays the role like she is living it, and she is a great role model for someone of my age-and you look like her! Did you at least get a free calender for the 2K you spent at the doc office?
sallysramble.blogspot.com
Sally, you have now officially made my calendar-free day.
Sally:
They need to give you a calendar when you arrive at the office– so you can track how long you sit in the waiting room before seeing the doctor!