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DVD Review: Last Chance Harvey [Blu-ray]: Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman: Movies & TV

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Anyone who’s seen the trailer for Last Chance Harvey can easily guess how it ends. In fact, the title alone is a clue. But the destination is hardly the point with movies like this; it’s the journey that counts, and this one is pretty entertaining. You could call director-writer Joel Hopkins’ film a romantic comedy, but it’s not especially robust in either of those departments. This is more of a character study, and veteran lead actors Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are well up to the task of bringing theirs to life. Both are awkward, lonely, social misfits. Hoffman’s Harvey Shine is a bit of a schlub; his gig as a jingle composer in jeopardy, estranged from his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and daughter (Liane Balaban), he flies to London for the latter’s wedding, only to have her tell him that she has chosen her step-father (James Brolin) rather than him to give her away. Meanwhile, Kate Walker (Thompson) spends her days trying to survey harried travelers at Heathrow Airport, answering her meddling mother’s constant stream of cell phone calls, and awaiting the all-to-inevitable onset of spinsterhood. Harvey has already brushed her off once when, having put in a humiliating appearance at the wedding and missed his return flight to America, he runs into her in an airport bar. What ensues–the initial repartee and sarcastic snarking, the gradual breaking of the ice, the burgeoning attraction, the complications and misunderstandings–is entirely predictable. But it’s also well done. These are people one might actually identify with; when Kate tells him, “I’m more comfortable with being disappointed. I’m angry with you for trying to take that away,” one senses a real person in there, which helps raise Last Chance Harvey above its conventions. –Sam Graham Fennessy

Get to Know the Cast From Last Chance Harvey

Dustin Hoffman (Harvey)

Emma Thompson (Kate)

Kathy Baker (Jean)

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Product Description
When it comes to love, is it ever too late to take a chance?  Academy Award® winners “Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are perfect together in a movie that reminds us that true love, can indeed, come to those who wait” (Sandy Kenyon, WABC-TV).

Finding Love in a Foreign Land,

By Chris Pandolfi (Los Angeles, CA) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
  

This review is from: Last Chance Harvey (DVD)

Watching “Last Chance Harvey,” I began to think about other such films and realized that I usually referred to them in my reviews as classic romantic comedies. But what exactly do I mean when I say that? In all likelihood, I mean that readers should go easy on the film because we’re used to those movies following a very specific formula, and never mind the fact that they’re contrived and cliché. I could very well call “Last Chance Harvey” a classic romantic comedy, because goodness knows it adheres to a tried and true structure. In spite of that, this is the one romantic comedy of 2008 that works the best, in large part because of stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson; whereas other filmmakers would cast young, energetic actors in a story about sex, writer/director Joel Hopkins has cast two older actors in a story is about love. Because they’re more experienced, they actually bring something to the table. They seem genuine as people.

But more importantly, they have chemistry, not necessarily as lovers but definitely as companions. In other words, it seems plausible that such people could meet in real life and fall in love. Hoffman plays Harvey Shine, a jingle writer from New York who always wanted to be a jazz pianist. It was easy for me to empathize with him, a somber, soft-spoken man who always feels ignored in a large crowd. Maybe there’s a part of him that wanted it that way; he’s been known to embarrass himself and those closest to him, so at a certain point, it’s better to just stay out of the way. He openly admits that he wasn’t the greatest father or husband, and while there’s no hostility between him or his daughter and ex-wife, there is a quiet yet prominent sense of disappointment on all accounts. And now, no one at his music company seems to be taking him seriously. More to the point, he’s on the verge of losing his job.

When Harvey flies to London to attend his daughter’s wedding, he meets a Heathrow employee named Kate Walker (Thompson), who, as it turns out, is stuck in her own emotional rut. She says she would like nothing more than to meet someone and start a relationship, but since she’s been let down so many times, she may be getting used to it. Later on in the film, she admits that being disappointed is more comfortable that being hurt. Much like Harvey, she also feels ignored in crowds, as when she’s on a blind date that starts off well but ends up as a social gathering that leaves her off in the sidelines. Her only social outlets are her coworkers and her mother (Eileen Atkins), an interesting character herself; she calls Kate constantly, pretty much to the point of insanity, and she seems to think her Polish next-door neighbor is a mass murderer who burns his victims in a large barbecue shed.

Harvey and Kate spend a wonderful afternoon together, and this is despite the fact that they don’t know very much about each other. We don’t know if a love is developing at this point, but it’s clear that a friendship is. While a bit quiet and reserved, Harvey is kind towards Kate, and he seems genuinely interested in what she has to say. Kate is willing to go along with it, although her nervous smiles and hesitant laughter suggest that she has absolutely no idea why any of this is happening. From out of nowhere comes a charming American man, and even though he has a lot of emotional baggage, there’s the sense that she’s interested in helping him deal with it. Most likely, that’s because she has baggage of her own; after convincing her to join him at his daughter’s wedding reception, there comes a point when she feels exactly the same as she did the night of her blind date. It’s up to Harvey to make her feel like she can be a part of the crowd.

There are some interesting moments between Harvey and his daughter, Susan (Liane Balaban). Even though they love each other in the strictest sense, they are more good friends than they are father and daughter, which is why she wants her stepfather, Brian (James Brolin), to give her away at the wedding. Harvey is understandably hurt, but he can’t stay mad at Brian forever; after all, he did take over for Harvey when his marriage failed, giving Susan the stability and attention she needed. This would be a tiresome story were Brian made to be vindictive and hostile. Thankfully, he isn’t–he’s decent and accommodating, a fact Harvey most likely has trouble accepting. There are few things worse than disliking someone without having a reason.

So yes, I guess I can call “Last Chance Harvey” a classic romantic comedy. But that doesn’t automatically make it a bad movie. What really made it work well was the thoughtful relationship between Harvey and Kate, which isn’t based on physical attraction so much as it’s based on the need to be loved. We don’t get too much of that in romantic comedies these days. Even the entertaining “Definitely, Maybe” and “My Best Friend’s Girl” were only committed to catering to younger audiences, which is a shame because the filmmakers missed some great opportunities to develop the characters at a more mature level. “Last Chance Harvey” gives its characters some degree of believability, and this is in spite of the story’s formulaic elements. I greatly enjoyed this film, and I’m sure most audiences will also.

A Quiet Little Movie About Nothing,

By a gentle sound (USA) -

This review is from: Last Chance Harvey (DVD)

That was once an observation about my preferences in movies, that I enjoyed stories that seemed like they might happen to you, could happen, and were just about nothing really. And after spending the afternoon in Camarillo, CA in an art theater of very senior citizens in audience I think many felt it might happen too, because they gave a nice small gentle applause.
Even with their canes, assistants and wheelchair gear (noted to me by my companion holding up my poorly performing leg so I could hobble in) we were an older crew.

What was the movie? Hum. The story of a man, a jazz piano commercial jingle writer, coping with a pressure sounding job nightmare in a digitizing universe, going to London to see his daughter be married. His name is Harvey Shine, that is interesting because of course he is just Dustin Hoffman reprising himself as a romantic duffer, struggling with the job, with the marriage of a daughter he’s lost to a divorce long ago, as she folded into her mother’s remarriage. He’s put up at a hotel, away from the entire family, apart, odd wheel. It carries so well those outsider feelings of this man, that has a daughter who doesn’t seem to know him too well, that he later will say in a conversation in the film she always seemed a bit embarrassed by him, as he notes he had a child within something that never was quite right. Never right. It took a toll, one he obviously regrets,it hurts, but he knows another price had to be paid by his child who has almost become another man’s child. Hard, impossible to verbalize. We miss in life on many things. In a series of hits and misses he then at this same time runs into Emma Thompson, oops Kate Walker I think, working for the airline, struggling with her own anxieties about her own scene of awkwardly attempting meeting someone, with nervous apprehension-anxieties over this. And as it seems to happen sometimes, he rebuffs her (ironically on his plane flight he was rebuffed by a passenger not interested in his chat) turns from her and some airline survey, only later to find himself after a horrible day running back into her at the airport as he fails to get the plane and get out of there to an essential work meeting. And finding a rapport then, a shift in the mind and heart, I think he can see her now. See her. After he’s lost enough to understand when he is found.
Or has found. Seeing.

It reminded me somehow of years ago when I was in my early twenties.Just a vague familiarity. A Cuban man drove me from the airport to a hotel down close to the Modern. A nice cabbie that talked and calmed a very fear-filled kid trying to figure out her life. Just a kind man. That’s all. I was very nervous, unsure where I was, he was a great help, and I must have just told him I was afraid of not having too much money so I couldn’t afford to pay more than thirty dollars. I was afraid of being overcharged. I know he didn’t do that, my funds were so limited. I told him that. And I tipped him. I think he helped me get a room at a place I could afford. There is a point. A few days later I ran into him at Central Park at a festival. He and I just happily chatted like friends as he played some gaming thing on a day I needed to feel safer. It’s a small world but this movie reminds me of how sometimes life hugs you in a very small corner. It allows you to listen to the tune played on the jazz piano. It gives you the blessing of a nice glass of rose.( I cannot figure out the accent on that e) And someone might actually wait for you to finish your class, as this new acquaintance does for Kate, or even walks with you all night or takes the risk to follow where someone leads.Or takes a hand or asks a favor.

Actually I’ve read the plot summarized here and at on-line movie sites ten times or more, when debating whether or not to risk my going out walking with such serious problems going on underfoot, so it isn’t what I’d want to say-another synopsis. It wouldn’t get it anyway. He goes to the wedding, is hurt by being replaced by the step dad told by the daughter in walking her down the aisle, meets this interesting, wary and lovely woman, loses his job, takes a risk, suffers a arrhythmia, almost misses a chance that he needs, she needs. And then there is her mom, calmly wondering if the neighbor is smoking bodies in the shed.
It’s a little cozy movie about the lovely warmth of holding a hand and strolling into the life of another, because it’s just righter than retreat.

I loved the littlest things. That there is some very old man in her writing class reading his sexual passages, that Harvey collapses when made to walk the kazillion flights of stairs at his hotel in London, both elevators off, that Emma Thompson wears this lovely silk lined raincoat so beautifully, that he goes to the pre wedding dinner with a white linen suit, crumpled with the tag not removed by the store, you know those inky ones, that they allow us to feel all the awkward staring discomfort, that Kate rolls up a little jacket or sweater to put under a child’s head when they are belatedly seated at a child’s table after the wedding at the reception. That he plays her a tune on the piano and asks her to stay, calming her discomfort knowing his own. That he gives her, and she him, the benefit of the doubt. That Kate goes to the rail with such anxiety when he tells her he’s there, going to be there, why he missed her, and she sits and looks and admits to all the real fear of being hurt.

And he just absorbs that, and says he won’t let her down.

I wish I could write to do it justice. It’s small and it’s everything. Lovely film.

A modest but nonetheless poignant and charming romantic comedy,

By Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) -
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)
  

  

  

This review is from: Last Chance Harvey (DVD)

By no means do I damn with faint praise when suggesting that this is a “small” film. Rather, only to suggest that it covers a brief period of time (a few days), in a single setting (London), focuses primarily on only two characters, and there few plot developments. Briefly, Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) is employed by an advertising agency in Manhattan as a jingle writer when we are introduced to him. Almost immediately we sense that he is dissatisfied with both his career (he would prefer to earn a living as a jazz composer and performer) and with the current state of his life (he is divorced and apparently alienated from his adult daughter, Susan, who is about to be married in London). The title refers to both situations: Charley is advised by his boss Marvin (Richard Schiff who played the character Toby Ziegler on the television program, The West Wing) that his job is in jeopardy. After a very brief encounter upon arrival at Heathrow Airport with Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) seeking to obtain travel information from passengers, Harvey is saddened to learn from Susan (Liane Balaban) that she has decided that her stepfather Brian (James Brolin) will accompany her down the aisle. Of course, Harvey encounters Kate again and then….

The acting is outstanding. The setting is especially appropriate for what happens to a troubled New Yorker, among strangers in a strange city, at a time when he is running out of options in all areas of his life. Kate has concerns of her own but seems less troubled, probably because she fulfills at least some needs by comforting and reassuring her mother Maggie Walker (Eileen Atkins) who calls her constantly throughout the day (and evening), concerned about trivial matters. We know almost nothing else about Kate’s private life, other than the absence of romance and few (if any) chances of finding it. She clearly does not wish to be hurt and is sensibly reluctant to become involved with anyone, even a stranger who is clearly unhappy, feels rejected, and in need of attention and kindness.

Five Star ratings of films should be reserved for “classics” and that is especially true of romantic comedies such as It Happened One Night, Little Shop Around the Corner, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. Last Chance Harvey is not in their class. However, I think Hoffman and Thompson are not only superb but have charming chemistry, the film is well-made, respectful of awkward adult situations with potentially serious consequences, and arrives at its happy ending with a pleasing plausibility.
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