Last Chance Harvey

Though saddled with virtually every single romantic-comedy convention one could possibly imagine, Last Chance Harvey nevertheless manages to break through its admittedly hackneyed structure to become a surprisingly charming piece of work – with Dustin Hoffman’s thoroughly compelling turn as the central character certainly standing as the film’s most overtly positive attribute. The actor stars as Harvey Shine, a musician whose pathetic existence is alleviated after he meets a lonely airline employee (Emma Thompson’s Kate Walker) while in England for his daughter’s wedding. Filmmaker Joel Hopkins has infused Last Chance Harvey with an unapologetically manipulative sensibility that’s at its most egregious in the opening half hour, as Harvey is portrayed as an almost epically morose figure who essentially comes off as the living embodiment of Murphy’s Law (eg he loses his job, his flight is cancelled, his daughter wants her stepfather to walk her down the aisle, etc). It’s only as Harvey encounters Kate that the movie first starts to genuinely engage the viewer, and there’s ultimately little doubt that Last Chance Harvey fares best during the tentative couple’s early getting-to-know-one-another conversations (which are, admittedly, more than a little reminiscent of Before Sunrise and its sequel). By the time the inevitable fake break-up rolls around, one that is, even by the genre’s standards, particularly needless, it’s become awfully easy to overlook the film’s various deficiencies thanks to the engaging (and downright palpable) chemistry between the two stars. The movie’s place as a well-crafted example of feel-good storytelling is subsequently impossible to deny, and it’s certainly refreshing to encounter a romance revolving around a pair of older characters.

***1/2 out of ****