DVD: The Last Station, For retail & rental (Optimum)

For a period drama about the last year of Tolstoy's life, and the ideological conflict between his aristocratic wife and the most committed disciples of his cult of socialist asceticism, TLS is a deceptively light and modern film.

Christopher Plummer deservedly earnt his first Oscar nomination; Helen Mirren, similarly nominated, is entertainingly OTT as Sophia. It's also a film in which love triumphs over ideas and ideals: one for romantics rather than scholars.