The Last Station

The Last Station (2009) — watch online on iFILM, a drama directed by Michael Hoffman about the final months of Leo Tolstoy's life. Christopher Plummer plays the great writer in his eighties, Helen Mirren is Countess Sofya, and what unfolds between them is less a biopic and more a marriage collapsing under the weight of legacy and ideology.

Tolstoy's inner circle is at war. His trusted disciple Chertkov, played by Paul Giamatti, presses him to sign away his copyrights — the entire literary estate — to the Russian people. Sofya fights for her family's future with every weapon available. Young secretary Valentin Bulgakov, played by James McAvoy, arrives as a wide-eyed believer in Tolstoyan ideals and finds himself referee in a battle where neither side is simply right.

Mirren was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress here — and what she brings to Sofya is someone neither villain nor victim, a woman who loved a man whose convictions kept him just out of reach. Stream The Last Station (2009) on iFILM.