Last Chance Harvey

Last Chance Harvey provides us with an excuse (though a fairly lame one) to watch two of our very best actors, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, play off one another. The results while away a pleasant evening but don’t leave a great deal behind. Hoffman is Harvey Shine, a writer of commercial jingles (with long repressed musical aspirations) who is struggling to keep his job as he gets older. He leaves New York to attend his daughter’s wedding in London; on arrival he finds himself the odd man out, having estranged himself from his ex-wife and daughter. Emma Thompson is Kate Walker, whose chief occupation is answering phone calls from her neurotic mother. She works in customer service at Heath Row. Paralleling Harvey’s suffering at his daughter’s wedding, we see Kate on a blind date that is thoroughly humiliating to her. Obviously these two sad sacks must get together, and, amid London’s millions, they manage to at lunch at the airport after Harvey missed his flight and just learned he’s been fired over the phone. He conducts an awkward and slightly creepy conversation with Kate that somehow wins her over. They walk around London (several people have compared this to Before Sunrise but with London instead of Paris and geezers instead of kids). She says he should go to his daughter’s wedding reception which he had skipped out on to fly back to New York for a critical business meeting. He agrees to only if Kate will accompany him, to which she agrees. When the daughter’s stepfather starts to give the father’s toast, Harvey interrupts him and asserts his prerogative as her real father. He gives a very, very awkward toast that turns gracious at the end. Kate falls for it. Eventually she walks away from him because she fears disappointment and he must win her back. And—surprise—he does!

If this sounds like thin gruel, that’s because it is. Where a romance like Before Sunrise is built on crackling dialog between two intelligent and articulate people, this film merely sets up situations for its two stars to respond to with their actor’s toolkits. The words that are spoken aren’t worthy of their speakers. Even with such a trifling plot, a really strong script would have gone a long ways to making this a better film. In the “Making Of” featurette, Hoffman indicates that some of the scenes were improvised by the leads, so one wonders what impact that has on the quality of dialog.

The script was initially written for Thompson, who brought in Hoffman with whom she was paired in Stranger Than Fiction (unseen by me). With those leads set, the film was able to attract some really fine actors for supporting roles—Dame Eileen Atkins as Kate’s mother, James Brolin as the step father, Kathy Baker as Harvey’s ex-wife, and Richard Schiff (Toby from West Wing) as Harvey’s boss. These folks are real assets to this film and bring life to their minor parts. The only supporting player I didn’t like was the daughter, played by Liane Balaban, who seemed not to bring much to the role.

Dustin Hoffman is probably 20 years older than Emma Thompson. She is probably eight inches taller than he is and outweighs him by twenty pounds, I’d bet. He’s the ugly American, she the repressed Brit. Yet the two actors make the chemistry work, and--I'll say it-- it’s just good, clean middle-brow fun.