The notion for "The Last Station" came from writer Jay Parini, who was so fascinated to discover that numerous people around Tolstoy in the fatal year of 1910 kept diaries with their versions of events that he wrote a novel telling the story from six points of view. Hoffman's screenplay simplifies this a bit but keeps the story's fine sense of the complexities of human relationships, of the war in Tolstoy's household between the welfare of family and the welfare of mankind.

One of the adult thrills is seeing McGregor and Williams strike sparks off of each other with fine banter. Another joy is watching Polanski and Robert Harris adapting from his own novel take your standard hokum thriller and wring moments of brilliance out of it. Much of the action unfolds inside the Lang compound, a post-modern cement bunker that the protagonists of "Repulsion", "The Tenant" and "Rosemary's Baby" would feel a kinship with. I had deep reservation going into the film; any work featuring the supporting cast of Jim Belushi, Kim Cattrall and Timothy Hutton will do that to me. And yet I've forgotten an old rule that I've bludgeoned film-geek friends with in the past: A great director can make lesser actors look good, and in that regard Belushi, Catrall and Hutton are well cast.” – Daily Film Dose.