Historical drama based on the last chapter in the life of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Christopher Plummer stars as the famous writer, who is nearing the end of his life after a long period of ill health. He lives with his family in a compound at Yasnaya Polyana, attended to by his wife and the disciples of his 'movement' a group of people dedicated to his ideas of pacifism, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence and communal property who have gathered in a nearby forest camp. When the head of the movement, Vladimir Chertkov Paul Giamatti, urges Leo to rewrite his will to posthumously renounce his material possessions, thereby leaving his family with nothing, Tolstoy's wife Sofya Helen Mirren does all she can to influence her husband and protect her inheritance.