Last Station, The

The New Yorker David Denby

This production, directed by Michael Hoffman, is like a great night at the theatre--the two performing demons go at each other full tilt and produce scenes of Shakespearean affection, chagrin, and rage.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The Last Station isn’t all that it should be, but whenever these two actors are onscreen, it’s like a great night at the theater.

The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber

Three superb performances by Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy should have Oscar handicappers drooling.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

For those who enjoy actors who can play it up without ever overplaying their hands, The Last Station is the destination of choice.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

If you come to this expecting the philosophical depth and psychological detail of Tolstoy’s work you’re sure to be disappointed, but as an actors’ romp it’s delectable.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The Last Station would have satisfied alone as a witty, manic lark, but as it moves toward the titular railway station, the film unfurls into so much more – a work of compassion, modulated mournfulness, and unchecked joy.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

As they build up steam, two powerful actors keep us wondering whether this train is bound for war or peace.

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

A stop any literary-minded movie-goer will want to make.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Set exactly a century ago, The Last Station is a droll tragicomedy starring those battling Tolstoys, whose family is unhappy in its own way.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie’s a chocolate box of nougaty performances, from Christopher Plummer’s delightful depiction of Tolstoy as a ribald old naïf to Paul Giamatti twirling his waxed mustache and playing to the gallery as Vladimir Chertkov.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Every second Helen Mirren is on-screen in The Last Station is a study in peerless talent.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Helen Mirren outdoes even her Oscar-winning performance in "The Queen" with her tour de force as Countess Sofya Tolstoy in Michael Hoffman's delightful The Last Station.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

It is edifying, it is emotionally engaging, it is embraceable.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A grandly entertaining historical drama.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Solid middlebrow biographical fare in which meaty roles are acted to the hilt by a cast more than ready for the feast.

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

Never miss a chance to see Helen Mirren. You certainly could do worse as far as movie advice goes. Mirren may not be the only reason to see The Last Station, about the final year of Leo Tolstoy's long, eventful life, but she's the best reason.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The entire film is a seduction, one that draws us into a vanished world where Count Leo Tolstoy and his wife of 48 years, Countess Sofya, come to joyous, tempestuous life in a matched pair of magnificent performances by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren.

Empire Staff (Not credited)

Handsome, engrossing, frequently very funny for a literary bio drama, and ultimately deeply moving, with pitch-perfect performances from one and all.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Giamatti, in fact, makes off with a few scenes as the literally mustache-twirling antagonist, providing some welcome moments of over-the-top levity.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The movie seemed a disappointment at first, until I decided I was missing the point: It’s actually a drama about the way people treat a celebrity – with fear or reverence, as a source of income or reflected glory– and the way their own personalities change around him, while his stays the same. In that way, the film’s a small triumph.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Literature lasts, but sometimes, The Last Station suggests, the ties that bind last, too.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's fascinating to see how life imitates art; the closing months of Tolstoy's life read like something he might have penned. One need not be familiar with "War and Peace," "Anna Karenina," or anything else written by the Russian great to appreciate the movie, however.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Some women are simply sexy forever. Helen Mirren is a woman like that. She's 64. As she enters her 70s, we'll begin to develop a fondness for sexy septuagenarians.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Tells the story of Leo Tolstoy's last year from a refreshing new perspective.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film itself, energetically directed and written by Michael Hoffman, can't always rise to the level of its two dynamo stars.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Tolstoy fought a love-hate war with his bipolar wife, Sonya, and thank God for that, since it allows Helen Mirren, basically playing a cross between Ibsen drama queen Hedda Gabler and the little squirrel from "A Doll's House," to waltz away with the movie.

Newsweek David Ansen

Slides gracefully between comedy and pathos (it aims for tragedy, but doesn't quite get there).

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The tony cast emotes like mad, but polished Brits are so temperamentally unlike Russians that every four-syllable patronymic sounds like iambic pentameter.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Sam Adams

Little more than a gilded trifle, though it offers its share of light enjoyments.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

At its best, The Last Station vividly illustrates the enduring Russian gift for iconography, whether spiritual, secular or something in between.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Though it feels at first like a musty edition of "Masterpiece Theatre," Michael Hoffman's adaptation of a novel by Jay Parini holds enough surprises to make a memorable impact.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Fitfully interesting, occasionally cringe-worthy, this is the sort of stagy production that mixes ribaldry and campy overacting that evokes summer theatre productions.

Time Out New York Nick Schager

Working with uneven material, the illustrious cast is too often stranded in a realm of tony, high-art camp.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The kind of movie that gives literature a bad name. Not because it undermines the dignity of a great writer and his work, but because it is so self-consciously eager to flaunt its own gravity and good taste.