The Last Station DVD
The Last Station is a love story set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, The Man Who Would be King, The Sound of Music) and his wife the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren, The Queen, Gosford Park).
Tolstoy, having rejected his title and embraced an ascetic life style, finds himself increasingly at odds with Sofya.
As his devoted disciple Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti, Sideways, The Illusionist) urges him to sign a new will leaving the rights to his work to the Russian people rather than his family, the conflict between husband and wife grows to breaking point.
The whole affair is witnessed by Tolstoy’s new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy, Wanted, Atonement), whose burgeoning love for the beautiful and feisty Masha (Kerry Condon) is set against the waning love of Tolstoy and Sofya.
A man at war within and without, Tolstoy, in his final days, makes a run for peace on a train with his physician, his daughter and Bulgakov. Sofya and Chertkov follow, but, too ill to continue, Tolstoy stops at the tiny railway station at Astapovo.
While hundreds camp outside awaiting hourly reports, it is here, at a remote railway junction, that Leo Tolstoy finds the peace he has been searching for.
The Last Station is a film about the difficulty of living with love and the impossibility of living without it.
The Last Station is released 21st June.