There are lots of films whose trailers are better than the actual feature. Last Chance Harvey is one of them. The ad is the perfect two-minute confection, an adorable romantic comedy with an adorable Dustin Hoffman and an adorable Emma Thompson falling in love in London. He buys her a dress, takes her to his daughter’s wedding and they teach each other how to let go and live again.
All this stuff does happen in the film, but the gaps between these events are long and depressing. Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is a jingle writer (why is jingle writing such a common profession in films and on television?) past his prime and about to lose his job. He travels to London to attend his daughter’s wedding, and finds out she’d rather her step-father give her away during the ceremony (what a bitch!). Hurt and alone, he goes back to Heathrow, but meets Kate Walker (Thompson) who works at the airport, someone else hurt and alone.
The drawn-out ‘meet cute’ and Harvey’s subsequent pursuit of Kate are quite sweet, but all the clichés are wheeled out before the film is through. Every landmark of London is wandered past as they talk (I must say, they take highly convoluted routes to get from A to B) and they talk a lot. This is not a film of action but of conversations, and unfortunately the script is not very funny and just doesn’t ring true.
That’s not to say that the performances aren’t authentic and truthful. No one plays crumpled and disappointed quite as well as Dustin Hoffman and this is really a role made for him. His smile is a little sudden and scary, though. Emma Thompson’s Kate seems like an intelligent and real woman who has just somehow ended up on her own and is therefore sad. Her smile is not scary at all.
This is the sort of film that just about manages to pass the time, but it could have been so much more if the writing had just been a little riskier. A good two minutes spread over one and a half hours makes for a thin gruel indeed.
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