Last Chance Harvey
THE cheeky Dustin Hoffman and the croaky Emma Thompson prove that you don’t have to be 16 to have a fine romance on screen these days with Last Chance Harvey (USA/12A/92mins), a charming little film all about falling in love just when everything else in your life seems to be falling apart.
Hoffman plays sad sack New York jingle composer Harvey Shine, in London for the wedding of his daughter (Liane Balaban) when he bumps into Emma Thompson’s bookish would-be author Kate Walker, not once, but twice.
Firstly, at Heathrow, where Kate tries to get tired and emotional passengers to answer a questionnaire as they head to baggage claim, and secondly, as a very drunk Harvey exits a cab just as Kate tries to enter.
Harvey has got plenty to get drunk about; his daughter has not only booked him into a hotel on his own, away from the wedding party, but she’s planning on being given away by her stepfather (James Brolin) too. Add to that the extreme likelihood that he’s about to be fired from the job he’s come to hate, and sure, why wouldn’t he get drunk?
That Kate has problems of her own — namely an elderly mother (Eileen Atkins) who spends most of her time reminding her daughter she’s a spinster — means that each could do with a little help from a friend. Writer/director Joel Hopkins’ mediocre input is elevated to something approaching special purely on the strength of his two leading players.
