The Last Station
Crit
I confess I've never been able to summon any enthusiasm for James McAvoy, so that might explain in part my lack of investment either in his character Valentin's romantic subplot or in his more central conscientious struggle between ideology and humanity.
But then, I've always been a big fan of former New Havener Paul Giamatti, and I don't care anything about his Rasputinesque grasp for the soul of a great one either. Both actors, as well as Kerry Condon, as Valentin's love, seem misplaced in prerevolutionary Russia, supernumerary outliers to the story that we care about.
That would be the story of a man and woman who have lived together for 48 years despite their both being impossible to live with, he because he's a semiwilling icon of iconoclasticism, she because she's a reactionary hyperromantic. And I'm not sure there's really all that much interesting about the Tolstoys' story as it's told here, except as Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren sell it. Face it: you're just along for the ride with two actors you'd follow anywhere, even to godforsaken Astapovo station.
By the way, no one reading this is probably inclined to leave the theater before the last of the credits have rolled, but even if your bladder is bursting, stick around for these end titles, which include some wonderful film footage of the real Lev Nikolaevich and Maria Andreevna, as well, one suspects, as some of the other principles in the story we've just seen.
Trailer
- Nordwand (North face)--German and Austrian climbers scale the Eiger in 1936, and I guess we're suppose to care because there's a war coming, though I don't recall mountain climbing being a big tactical weapon either for Axis or Allies.
1 comment:
Speaking of watching the credits, my best story about this is when I went to go see Chicago with a friend who absolutely refuses to sit through the credits (don't ask me why and I hate to go to the movies with her). I drove so that meant that she had to wait in the hall for me while I finished the movie. When I came out, she said, "I didn't know John C. Riley could sing." I said "If you had watched the credits you would have known who dubbed his voice." Damn, that felt good. This woman would rather wait in the hall then sit her ass in a seat and finish a movie. I don't think I have gone to a movie with her since then. This is why I prefer to go to the movies by myself.
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