It is probably as much fun to watch professional actors  chew scenery as it must be for them to do it. Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirran ham it up and seem to be having a ball in "The Fire Station" and, consequently, both have gotten Oscar nominations!

There is a good story about Leo Tolstoy--a writer of many classic books and a movement (more about the latter in a minute--and his wife,Sofya, who bore 13 children, were married for 48 years and had a loving but contentious love affair, but it isn't in this movie. Plummer and Mirran play their roles to the hilt, she is a 'The Diva is on stage' and he
'The gentle and calm giant' and are aided in their emoting by Paul Giamatti even to the extent of twirling his mustache.

The film is about Paul wanting Tolstoy's works to be put in the public domain while Helen wants the royalties to be an inheritance for her and her children. There is a second story involving a virginal man, James McAvoy, and a woman, Kerry Condon,
who takes his virginity which seems to be against the Tolstoy's
movement of celibacy. There is a commune for this movement which I
really couldn't tell you what it was/is about from the movie.

I wish the whole movie was about Leo & Sofya just to watch the tightly wound, throwing dishes, Mirran and  Plummer's man who has relaxed into his fame but this is not my movie so the
director and writer, Michael Hoffman, has the secondary love story with
a gratuitous sex scene and anembarrassing scene of the stars crowing like a rooster and hen--though they seemed to be enjoying 'letting loose'--plus Paul's villainy almost like that of a silent movie character.

I
suggest seeing the movie just to enjoy the performances of Plummer
& Mirran and their enjoyment of playing these flamboyant people and
this might be the rare case where it would be better to see them on a
TV screen where it would seem the set couldn't contain them.