Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson star in this beguiling romance as two strangers meet in London and change one another's lives forever
Academy Award winners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson team up once again after their fantastic performances in Stranger Than Fiction.
Hoffman is New York musician Harvey Shine who works as a jingle writer for TV. But as with any job in the fickle music industry Harvey is about to get his last chance at winning a big contract or he's out of a job.
There is some good news however, he's off to see his daughter get married in London. But things get worse when he finds out that his daughter has chosen her stepfather instead of him to give her away at her wedding and his ex-wife still hates him. A fateful (or movie-contrived) meeting with airport worker Kate played by Emma Thompson (Emma Thompson as an airport worker? I can believe her as a writer, or a university professor, as a children's nanny or even the sister to the Prime Minister, but a lowly survey taking, airport (Office of National Statistics) worker Emma Thompson is not!). Where was I? Oh yes a meeting with Kate presents Harvey with one last chance for real happiness.
So does this all weave together to create a lovable, unmissable, magical romantic comedy? Well I'm sorry to tell you that it doesn't quite deliver. It's OK. It's watchable. It's something to help pass the time but does it have flashes of brilliance? Some perhaps. Does it match up to Hoffman and Thompson's work in Stranger Than Fiction? Not a chance.
The direction is passable, although slightly irksome as it flips from one story to another before Harvey and Kate finally properly meet some 40 or so minutes into the film, when things start so promisingly with two lost and wounded souls coming together. But in all honesty this is the high point, there's not much to tell after that.
Last Chance Harvey is just about worth watching for some decent performances and a few special moments. At 89 minutes it's bearable, but the plot was too thin to drag it out to anything longer and fortunately we are spared their embarrassment of having to string it out.
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Set in London, this romantic comedy stars Dustin Hoffman as Harvey Shine, a divorced and haggard jingle-writer quickly aging out of his career and workaholic ways. With a warning from his boss (Richard Schiff) to not bother rushing back, Harvey goes to London, begrudgingly, for his daughter's wedding, fielding that work calls the whole time he's there. When Harvey greets his estranged daughter, Susie (Liane Balaban), it becomes clear just how far away he's grown from his family.
Romantic drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is one of life's losers. A would-be jazz pianist, he earns his living in a dead-end job writing advertising jingles. When he flies to London for his daughter's wedding, he is dismayed to learn that his daughter would prefer her stepfather (James Brolin) to walk her down the aisle. While drowning his sorrows, Harvey meets Kate (Thompson), a 40-something employee of the National Office for Statistics whose life has hithero been limited to work, the occasional humiliating blind date and endless phone calls from her smothering mother (Eileen Atkins). Despite numerous setbacks and misunderstandings, a gradual connection forms between Kate and Harvey that will transform both of their lives.
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