The Best of Me

It says here that one of us will die. I sure hope

somebody else is playing us when it happens.

Grade: C –

Director: Michael Hoffman

Starring: Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato and Gerald McRaney

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 57 min.

The character names may change, but Nicholas Sparks romance porn follows the same formula: a young boy and young girl fall in-and-out-and-back-in love amid some moss-covered Southern setting, then someone dies and there’s a tear-jerker twist. Cut, print it, that’s a wrap.

The latest installment from Sparks’ melodrama machine is The Best of Me, in which former high school sweethearts Dawson (James Marsden) and Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) are forced to reunite back in their small Louisiana hometown after the death of Tuck (Gerald McRaney, the film’s lone highlight), Dawson’s gruff but kindly adoptive father.

The timeline oscillates between Dawson and Amanda’s uneasy reunion and the beginnings of their high school romance 21 years earlier. There Dawson (played by Luke Bracey) is a hunky kid from a white trash, meth-cooking clan. But Dawson is “different,” denoted by the fact that we see him reading Physics textbooks and, later as an adult, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking. After getting his fill of physical abuse, Dawson runs away and it taken by Tuck, an ex-Marine widower with an arsenal of rifles and a carefully cultivated flower garden.

Dawson’s checkered family doesn’t stop rich girl Amanda (played by Liana Liberato) from almost obsessively pursuing him. Of course, she’s in no way dazzled by his tousled locks and ripped abs. She likes him because he’s “different.” Amanda’s father doesn’t quite see it that way and unsuccessfully attempts to buy Dawson out of seeing his daughter, an offer that casts dad as a villain despite the reasoned position that he doesn’t want his little girl dating the son of drug-dealing, backwoods rednecks.

The only bit of intrigue involves learning what split up these lovebirds and how high Sparks’ body count will eventually rise. There’s also some schoolyard-grade masochism where it’s OK to cheat on your husband if he’s a rich nebbish who drinks too much and likes golf, and your paramour sports a perpetual two-day beard, drives pickup trucks and did four years in prison.

The narrative treads water until its howler of a climax, which I haven’t the “heart” to reveal but suffice it to say it’s so cloying it cements the film’s status as Sparks self-parody.

The Last Station

Stop - your fake whiskers are tickling me

Grade: B –

Director: Michael Hoffman

Starring: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, Anne-Marie Duff, and Kerry Condon

MPAA Rating:

Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Leo Tolstoy is regarded as one of the world’s greatest novelists, penning such masterpieces as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He was a Christian anarchist and educational reformer whose teachings inspired a movement formed by his followers, called Tolstoyans. But, if writer-director Michael Hoffman is to be believed, all you need to understand the famous author is summed up his quote that opens The Last Station: “Everything I know, I know only because I love.”

Divining the true object of Tolstoy’s affections is the premise of Hoffman’s film, which is set in 1910 and tracks the writer’s final days from his home at Yasnaya Polyana to the Astapovo railway station where he finally succumbed to pneumonia. We see the warring camps through the eyes of a fresh-faced disciple played by James McAvoy. On one side is Sofya (Helen Mirren), Tolstoy’s wife of over 40 years, mother of 13 children (five died during childhood), and his secretary and manger during his most productive literary years. Over time, however, their relationship soured greatly, and her role in Tolstoy’s life is eventually supplanted by his Tolstoyan followers, particularly their founder, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti).

The Last Station details the battle between Sofya and Chertkov for Tolstoy’s spirit, revolving principally around ownership of the copyrights to Tolstoy’s early, most lucrative works. Chertkov wants Tolstoy to renounce his interest in them ostensibly so they can be enjoyed freely by the Russian people; Sofya sees them as his personal and financial legacy, compensation for years of hard work and sacrifice.

Any examination of right and wrong in this conflict is a far murkier than the position Hoffman takes, which is solidly behind Sofya, a histrionic but devoted spouse who sneers at Chertkov’s duplicitous, high-minded cooing. Giamatti’s performance is delectably devious given the part he’s given; any fault in the way Chertkov is presented rests squarely on Hoffman’s one-dimensional rendering.

Hoffman ignores any detailed analysis of the sweeping political issues or influences at play, nor does he explicate obvious subplots such as why Sasha (Anne-Marie Duff), Tolstoy’s daughter, aligns herself with Chertkov against her mother.

Although the screenplay is actually adapted from a 1990 novel by Jay Parini, the stagey presentation of this subject-matter makes the film feel like a cross between The Lion in Winter and The Madness of King George; indeed, Count and Countess Tolstoys’ noble titles only reinforce the palace drama ambiance.

All that said, The Last Station is not strictly a high-gloss biopic or stuffy agitprop. At its heart, this is an acting exercise for the ageless Plummer and Mirren, both Oscar-nominated for their performances. Both play their meaty roles to the hilt; Mirren gets to crash through a windows, fall into a pond, and fire off a firearm, while Plummer clucks like chicken as foreplay before one of Leo and Sofya’s few intimate moments.

The closing credits contain rare, vintage footage of Tolstoy and others characters depicted in the film. Beyond the historical significance, it is the one instance when The Last Station feels authentic, not something being projected – however ably – to the balcony of a West End theatre.

Neil Morris