LAST CHANCE HARVEY
I'm always be glad to see both Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, they're like old friends who've moved out of town, you see them less, miss them and when they suddenly appear it's just like old times. In Last Chance Harvey, director Joel Hopkins provides the vehicle, a simple tale about love and second chances, which these two extraordinary actors inject with life.
Hoffman plays Harvey Shine a song and jingle writer who is about to be farmed out for retirement. As the axe is about to fall, he's invited to his daughter's (Liane Balaban) wedding in London and heads across the pond where he accidently meets Kate Walker (Thompson) an authentic English dowdy, overly attentive to her pain in the neck mother (Eileen Atkins) who thinks the next door neighbor is a serial killer. They meet, they dance around each other and...well...I'm not the spoiler but I'll say it's a sweet, light romantic comedy about people who are at an age where they'd like companionship but without the drama and heartbreak.
In fact what is nice about the film is it's unfailing commitment to both the foolishness and wisdom that comes with age. There are no great revelations just close examinations of two oddballs and Thompson and Hoffman are fantastic at playing oddballs. Thompson is probably still mostly associated in the U.S. with her English period turns in both Howard's End for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress and Sense and Sensibility for which she earned the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award. But she has almost as long a list of accomplishments as Dustin Hoffman, except across film, television and theater. Here she's a recognizable type of decidedly middle-aged single woman who, like, Hoffman isn't sure how she wound up where she is. She's got a "job" but dreams of being a writer, which she seems tentative about fully committing herself to.
Hoffman, with his short stature and unconventional looks has always walked the line between newfangled leading man in, for example, The Graduate to ultimate character actor as, for example, Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. Continuing to age gracefully he has recently turned up seeming to have a good time in I ♥ Huckabees (maybe not during the director David O Russell's meltdown preserved for all to see on Youtube) and as the Romeo to Barbra Streisand's Juliet in Meet the Fockers. He's not having so much fun here, dealing with getting old and realizing, as many men do, that as his professional identity recedes, he's not left with much. He's even second fiddle at his daughter's wedding since she asks her stepfather (James Brolin) to walk her down the aisle.
It's a familiar and welcome story about how it's never too late for love. And these two fine actors find some life to pump into the conventional romantic comedy formula that has lately become so tiresome. There is no glamour or agelessness, just regular and recognizable folk. Although conventional "wisdom" tells us that 18-35 year olds are the golden geese, these little films are nonetheless welcome. Hollywood power brokers, mostly baby boomers themselves should take heed...in spite of your best efforts to ignore your own sagging bottoms and flabby tummies, Last Chance Harvey reminds us that that time waits for no man or woman, and it's nothing to freak out about.
Last Chance Harvey open December 25, 2008.
Written and directed by Joel Hopkins; produced by Tim Perrell and Nicola Usborne; director of photography, John de Borman; edited by Robin Sales; music by Dickon Hinchliffe. Released by Overture Films.
With: Dustin Hoffman (Harvey Shine), Emma Thompson (Kate Walker), Eileen Atkins (Maggie), Kathy Baker (Jean), Liane Balaban (Susan), Brian (James Brolin), and Marvin (Richard Schiff).
