It’s 1910 and it’s all go at the Tolstoy house. After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), Leo Tolstoy’s shrill yet devoted wife and secretary, is more than a little put out by the author’s newly formed religion. Having renounced his noble title and property in favour of cooperative vegetarianism, celibacy and poverty, Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is now surrounded by proto-hippies and sycophantic disciples, most notably Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) who, as the film opens, dispatches a wide-eyed James McAvoy to spy on the harrumphing Countess.
Our young hero is soon finessed into spying for both parties as a squabble over entitlements blows up to epic proportions, but not before his dedication to Tolstoy’s prescription for celibacy is well and truly tested.
There are lovely things about this good-looking heritage drama, most notably Dame Mirren’s foot-stamping performance and Mr. Plummer’s Shakespearean portrait of the artist as an old man (he’s cheerier than Lear but twice as prone to follies).