BEFORE: Well, darn, I went and programmed this film, then it seems like it disappeared from Hulu just a couple weeks later. I realize everything has an expiration date, but these things do tend to happen at the worst times. I'm programmed to make it to July 1 in a set number of steps, so I can land the right film on July 4. Usually it's no big deal, if a film is gone from Netflix, maybe it went to Hulu - if it left Hulu, maybe it went to Tubi or Roku, I don't mind a few ads. This one isn't screening anywhere that isn't going to charge me an additional fee, like YouTube or Apple TV, and I haven't found a new pirate site to replace the one that got shut down.
Wait, maybe I can find a replacement film, another film on my list that could just happen to connect the same two films, that I could just drop into the place, with no lengthening of the chain. Sure, there are two films I could watch instead - but one is a romance film, and it's firmly entrenched in a chain saved for February, so I could screw up a whole month's worth of films by watching that now. The other substitute is that film set during Christmastime about the dying mother, which I already passed on once, and now I'm saving that for Christmas some year.
Wait, maybe I can find a replacement film, another film on my list that could just happen to connect the same two films, that I could just drop into the place, with no lengthening of the chain. Sure, there are two films I could watch instead - but one is a romance film, and it's firmly entrenched in a chain saved for February, so I could screw up a whole month's worth of films by watching that now. The other substitute is that film set during Christmastime about the dying mother, which I already passed on once, and now I'm saving that for Christmas some year.
So damn it, I have to pay the $4 today to watch this film and keep the chain going without tearing apart a set chain of a week's length just to try to end up in the same place, I honestly don't even know if that would be possible. YouTube gets paid today, because iTunes is just a hollowed-out shell now, they never have any movies that I want to watch any more - and I can watch YouTube on my computer and not my phone, at least. OK, so that's the plan, pay the fee and I can stick with the chain that I know is going to get me to the Doc Block. John Sessions carries over from "Denial".
THE PLOT: A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things.
AFTER: I have to admit I don't know much about Leo Tolstoy, I mean the man as opposed to the author - you can know an author by his works, but is that all that he was? This film is an account of the last year of his life, 1910, during which his almost cult-like followers wanted him to create a new will, one which would place his copyrights in the public domain, which seemed like a very Socialist thing to do, and Socialism was kind of having a moment right around then on the Russian political scene. However, Tolstoy's long-term wife seemed to have other ideas about who should own those copyrights and profit from the book sales after his death. Well, she had gotten used to living in a nice big house and all the comforts therein, who could blame her?
We see the strain on the marriage through the eyes of Tolstoy's new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, who is assigned the job by Chertkov, the leader of the "disciples" known as Tolstoyans, not "Leo-Crats" as you might imagine. Valentin can see both sides of the argument, especially after Tolstoy's wife Sofya is very nice to him, but he also understands how much the author means to the entire nation, and there seems to be growing sentiment against the aristocrats and the other people who "own" stuff - shouldn't wealth be better distributed among the population? Ah, but Valentin hasn't seen the other side of Sofya, the long-suffering wife who might also have anger issues or mental problems. Well, sure, who wouldn't after 40 years of marriage? These two can't be in the same room for 10 minutes without talking about killing each other. Yeah, that tracks.
Tolstoy, of course, has 14 children, that's what makes this another addition to the Father's Day themed programming. See, I knew there was a reason why I stayed the course and didn't drop in a substitute film... Tolstoy came from a family of old Russian nobility, his father was a Count, and he was the fourth of five children, but both parents died before he was ten. When he went to university, his teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn". After running up gambling debts, the simplest (?) thing to do was join the Army and fight in the Crimean War - hey, that's my favorite go-to Jeopardy answer whenever there's a question about Russian Wars! His war service and two trips around Europe turned him from a privileged noble into a non-violent anarchist - well, sure, OK, I love that for him. Who knew that he had a running correspondence with Gandhi?
After founding a number of schools for the children of peasants, Tolstoy decided to get married, and he chose Sophia Behrs, sixteen years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She acted as his support system - secretary, editor and financial manager - giving him the freedom to write "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina". They had 13 children, eight of whom survived past childhood. But as Tolstoy became more radical in his views, the relationship with his wife kind of deteriorated, the film represents the ultimate result of all that. We see Tolstoy leave his estate after signing the new will, he really just needs to be somewhere else to "continue his work". This is that condition we call "artist brain", where an author or filmmaker refuses to admit that he's old and really needs to retire.
Leaving his wife behind has unintended results - when she learns that he has left to parts unknown and has no plans to return, she immediately heads for the lake and tries to drown herself. Well, love makes people do some funny things sometimes - she couldn't stand to live with him any more, but the thought of living without him was even worse. He had taken a train to Astapovo station, which was literally (and figuratively) the end of the line - he apparently became ill at some point along the way. Their daughter Sasha did allow her mother to see him briefly before he died, I suppose that was the least she could have done. The new will stood for a while, but in 1914 the Russian senate allowed the copyrights of his works back to his widow.
Helen Mirren does most of the heavy lifting here, Christopher Plummer is much more passive, but to be fair, he was playing Tolstoy as a pacifist. However, remember that he was also an anarchist, and we just don't really get to see that side of him here. Paul Giamatti is pretty passive too, but his character is a schemer, and the actor only gets to do his trademark "temper flare-up" thing once in this movie - probably the most Giamatti-esque that Paul Giamatti ever got was during his performance in "Big Fat Liar", I realize that now. Well, that and "Private Parts" and "Sideways", I realize you could edit a whole compilation together of scenes with characters played by Giamatti losing their tempers...
Directed by Michael Hoffman (director of "The Best of Me" and "Game 6")
Also starring Helen Mirren (last seen in "The Thursday Murder Club"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "The Exception"), Paul Giamatti (last seen in "Big Fat Liar"), James McAvoy (last seen in "The Bubble"), Patrick Kennedy (last seen in "The November Man"), Kerry Condon (last seen in "In the Land of Saints and Sinners"), Anne-Marie Duff (last seen in "On Chesil Beach"), Tomas Spencer (last seen in "Beyond the Sea"), Christian Gaul, Wolfgang Hantsch, David Masterson, Anastasia Tolstoy, Maximilian Gartner, Nenad Lucic, Henning Mosselman
RATING: 6 out of 10 broken plates
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