"You don't need a husband; you need a Greek chorus!" Count Leo Tolstoy (the peerless Christopher Plummer) bellows at his wife, Sofya, following yet another one of her dramatic tantrums. As portrayed by Helen Mirren in Michael Hoffman's decent period drama "The Last Station," the histrionic Countess emotes with enough mad theatricality to entertain a packed amphitheater instead of just enraging an audience of one in her own home. Sofya purrs, shouts, wails, intimidates, and even smashes the china, but there's enough of a wise glint in her wild eyes to suggest that she knows exactly what she's doing. It's those same occasional flashes of lucidity that narrowly prevent you from dismissing Mirren's performance as indulgent overacting. Also, the fact that it's Helen freaking Mirren should be another clue that she's got this manipulative diva's number.

Based on the 1990 novel by Jay Parini, "The Last Station" takes place one century ago in the final months of Tolstoy's life, the literary giant now a veritable guru disseminating his social, religious, and political ideologies from the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Among the beliefs that Tolstoy advocates to the so-called Tolstoyans are passive resistance, celibacy, vegetarianism, and freedom from material possessions. It's the last thing that's especially vexing the Countess, unwilling to stand quietly by as her husband's right-hand, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti, literally twirling his mustache), convinces Tolstoy to change his will and bequeath the copyrights for classics like "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace" to the Russian people. Certain that she and the rest of the titled Tolstoy family will starve to death without the royalties rolling in, Sofya makes home life nearly unbearable for her husband with her justified paranoia and constant scheming.

Our diplomatic point of view as an outsider is represented by James McAvoy as Valentin Bulgakov, a virginal young idealist and ardent disciple of Tolstoy who lands a dream job as secretary to his hero. (The scene where Bulgakov practically bursts with joy upon realizing that this great man is also a generous teddy bear is sweetly touching.) But Bulgakov is caught in the middle: Chertkov wants him to report back on Sofya's actions, while Sofya tries to get the confused young man to spy on Chertkov. And in the grand tradition of movies about famous figures as seen through the eyes of a comparatively naïve nobody (McAvoy's "The Last King of Scotland" springs immediately to mind), Bulgakov embarks on an evolution of his own, in which he learns that the vow of celibacy can be a tricky one.

"The Last Station" feels oddly retro, harkening back to a not-so-very-long-ago when Merchant and Ivory were in charge and acclaimed thespians gnawed on the antiques. Writer-director Hoffman (he also did 1991's borderline cult fave "Soapdish" as well as the underrated Robert Downey Jr. frock flick "Restoration") smartly underplays the political intrigue, instead focusing on the more fascinating (to me, anyway) dynamics of a long marriage, where the qualities that initially seduced the parties have over time come to repel. The 80-year-old Plummer earned his first Oscar nomination (!) for his role here, Tolstoy roaring to hot life in his dealings with the Countess. Despite her shawls and high collars, Mirren (also Oscar nominated) is all lusty id, Sofya's familiarity with her husband breeding both contempt and passion. You may not have written "War and Peace," but you can surely relate to both sensations.