Leo Tolstoy was the most famous author in the world in the early 20th century. News photographers and newsreel cameramen (the paparazzi of the day) clamored outside his country estate for a glimpse. He was also, at the end of his life, the spiritual guru to a cultlike movement that promoted a pre-Soviet socialism with a puritanical streak of celibacy. But in the opening scenes of Michael Hoffman's pseudobiopic (it's based on a novel, not a biography), Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer with a Walt Whitman beard and a jolly countenance) awakens in the rustic clutter of his manor bedroom, untangles himself from his wife, Sofya (an appropriately regal Helen Mirren), and greets the dawn with a hearty smile and the glow of love.

This is Tolstoy as a merry bohemian in aristocratic trappings, preaching the evils of private property while living in a mansion. Sofya, meanwhile, is quite wedded to the concept of private property and happy to debate her philosopher husband. They have found a way to remain in philosophical disagreement and conjugal bliss. This vexes Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), the leader of the movement, who's scheming to liberate Tolstoy's legacy for his own benefit.

The couple's détente deteriorates as the power struggle escalates and our wide-eyed young Tolstoyan disciple (James McAvoy, all amiable naïf) watches a great love dashed by petty concerns. The film deteriorates along with it, into theatrical confrontations and tragic gestures. Giamatti is pure mustache-twirling villainy, and the vaguely defined movement is, as cynically portrayed in the film, rife with hypocrisy. The Last Station's heart-tugging finale, of true love over philosophy and politics, is as unsatisfying as it is inevitable—an easy score made possible only by the cartoonish reduction of these famous lives. I'd trade all of the film's big theatrical performances (even Oscar-nominated Mirren and Plummer) and romantic clichés for the simple, palpable intimacy of those opening moments.