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| Palm Springs International Film Festival Opening Night Film Review |
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 “The Last Station” Is A Good Choice To Kick Off The 21st Annual FestivalTuesday, January 5, 2010 Palm Springs, California Story by Palm Springs Guides Theatre & Cinema Critic/Reviewer Jack Lyons Film Festivals are big deals throughout the world. Big Festivals, are really big deals, and therefore require a movie that complements the Festival concept in both scope and story. Opening night audiences at the prestigious Palm Springs International Film Festival on Tuesday, Jan. 5, were treated to no less a selection than “The Last Station” written and directed by Michael Hoffman. In size, scope and subject matter, it doesn’t get much larger than a retelling of the last year of the Great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, his legacy, and the struggle to protect that legacy by his wife and surviving children. Nobody suffers like characters in Russian novels, and “The Last Station” doesn’t disappoint in that respect. Actually the choice to kick-off the 10-day Festival is a conservative and safe selection. It’s not too avant-garde, it’s not too “old Hollywood.” It’s a choice that tries to cut across all ages and demographics in its appeal to 21st century audiences. Whether it succeeds in accomplishing that remains to be seen. It opens nation wide January 15. The story is set in 1910 Czarist Russia and examines the final days in the life of Europe’s most famous novelist, Leo Tolstoy (superbly and lustily played by Christopher Plummer). While the world waits, his wife of 48 years and mother of his 13 children, Countess Sofya (magnificently played by Helen Mirren), worries that his legacy and the copyrights of his most famous works will not pass to her and his family upon his death. There are good reasons for her concern. Tolstoy’s personal secretary, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), has been secretly persuading Tolstoy to share his legacy with the Russian people instead and pushes the issue in the form of a second will. As a way to ensure the second will issue will happen, Chertkov sends his envoy, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), to chronicle the great man’s failing thoughts and feelings in diaries and notes, setting the stage for “Russian paranoia and angst” on the part of the rival factions. Into this mix, add the love story between Valentin and a liberated Russian woman Masha (a seductive Kerry Condon), and you have the recipe for what Hollywood calls “a sweeping epic film.” All of the components of a “large canvas” movie are present — richly textured and lush cinematography, mood-inducing music scoring and a uniformly outstanding cast. However, for me, the film lacks focus and the ability to engage. It begins with the look and feel of a “big picture message and story to tell,” but in the final analysis what we end up with is a small personal story; one that runs too long, and one that finishes three times before the end credits begin to roll. Having said all this, I still believe Mirren and Plummer will nab Oscar nominations. Their on-screen chemistry is terrific and very reminiscent of Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn’s love/hate relationship in “The Lion in Winter” — with Kate winning number three of her four Oscars. What “The Last Station” does have going for it, however, is the opportunity to see two crafty and very gifted actors at the top of their games. Perhaps, it’s a “big picture” movie after all. For more about the Palm Springs International Film Festival, click here. Palm Springs Guides Theatre & Cinema Critic/Reviewer Jack Lyons is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America, West and Screen Actors Guild and is interested in all things "show biz." An entertainment journalist, TV, radio and theater reviewer/critic seen locally in the Coachella Valley on channel My13 KPSE-TV on "Desert Entertainment This Week." To visit Jack's blog, click here. | |||||||
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