Last Chance Harvey (2008)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Joel Hopkins

Writer:

Joel Hopkins (writer)

Release Date:

16 January 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

It's about first loves, last chances and everything in between.

Plot:

In London for his daughter's wedding, a rumpled man finds his romantic spirits lifted by a new woman in his life.

Plot Keywords:

London | Wedding | Wedding Reception | Love | Mother

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes.

Cast

Dustin Hoffman	...	Harvey Shine
Emma Thompson	...	Kate Walker
Eileen Atkins	...	Maggie Walker
Kathy Baker	...	Jean
Liane Balaban	...	Susan
James Brolin	...	Brian
Richard Schiff	...	Marvin
Tim Howar	...	Johnnie
Wendy Mae Brown	...	Aggie
Bronagh Gallagher	...	Oonagh
Jeremy Sheffield	...	Matt
Daniel Lapaine	...	Scott
Patrick Baladi	...	Simon
Adam James	...	Josh Hillman
Michael Landes	...	Peter Turner

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #44804) | Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | Portugal:M/12 | Netherlands:AL | Finland:S | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Mexico:A | Ireland:12A | Sweden:Btl | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

Belsize Park, London, England, UK

Company:

Overture Films

Goofs:

Errors in geography: Susan's wedding reception was in the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London on the 14th floor according to the elevator when Kate was leaving the party. There are only eight floors in the Grosvenor House Hotel.

Quotes:

Kate Walker: I'm not gonna do it, because it'll hurt! Sometime or other there'll be, you know "It's not working." or "I need my space." or whatever it is and it will end and it will hurt, and I won't do it.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 81st Annual Academy Awards (2009) (TV)

A Conventional Third Act Weighs Down a Leisurely Autumnal Romantic Yarn

At its best, this rather slight 2008 melding of comedy and drama reminds me of Ulu Grosbard's bittersweet "Falling in Love" (1984) in which Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep stumble into a romantic relationship constantly derailed by guilt and commuter train schedules. At its worst, this film - leisurely directed and written by Joel Hopkins - uses several well-worn cinematic conventions - including a familiar third-act plot device from a classic movie - and forces a predictable ending that is far from satisfying. On the upside, it certainly helps to have actors the caliber of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in the principal roles, although I have to admit I was not taken in by their characters' halting romance because the actors are simply not meshing in a convincing way. In fact, this movie ironically works better when the actors perform in separate scenes away from each other. The problem is that the elfin Hoffman just tries too hard to overcome Thompson's self-protective demeanor of disappointment.

The story focuses on Harvey Shine, a divorced jingle writer whose career seems to be waning in the face of more youthful talent. At the same time, his daughter Susan is getting married in England, so he is anxious to offset his professional disappointments with a family reunion he really needs. However, their estrangement turns out to be deeper than expected since Susan tells him that she has already asked her rugged, engaging stepfather to give her away at the wedding. When he concludes that it is he who has become the family outsider, he meets Kate Walker, an airport employee who has the thankless task of surveying passengers coming off their flights. She also happens to be a lonely spinster who lives near her paranoid mother and finds the prospect of another failed blind date excruciating. Kate and Harvey meet-cute at a Heathrow lounge at their lowest emotional points, and they start to bond over long walks along London's South Bank. She convinces him to go to Susan's reception, and he agrees only if Kate becomes his date. The rest of the plot follows the story arc you would expect.

In perhaps a conscious move, Hoffman seems to be channeling a bit of Benjamin Braddock's schlubby, obsessive nature in "The Graduate" over forty years later. He is at his best when we feel Harvey's rejection in isolation, but the assertive approach the 71-year-old actor takes in courting Kate is challenging to embrace. Thompson, on the other hand, is a pure joy as Kate because she plays against the grain of what could have been a victim character. She wears Kate's disappointment in such a convincingly objective manner that her moments of heartache attain greater resonance. Eileen Atkins and Kathy Baker have just a few scenes to bring their characters to life, Kate's dotty mother and Harvey's still-resentful ex-wife, respectively. London looks pretty inviting thanks to John de Borman's crisp cinematography, though Dickon Hinchliffe's tinkling music punctuates the proceedings excessively. The 2009 DVD contains a nice audio commentary track with Hoffman (recorded separately), Hopkins and a particularly acerbic Thompson. The sixteen-minute featurette reflects the same personalities in a standard making-of format, although both this and the theatrical trailer give away too much of the plot.