> Last Chance Harvey
Director: Joel Hopkins
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins, Kathy Baker, James Brolin, Liane Balaban, Daniel Lapaine
Rating: (PG) Movie reviews
Four stars
Reviewed by Christine Powley
Remember how Monica and Chandler from Friends hooked up? For Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) the odds are not looking so great.
In Last Chance Harvey (Rialto and Hoyts) he is leaving his job, which has suddenly become shaky, to attend his daughter's wedding, only to discover that his claims as a father are even shakier than the job.
The panic in Hoffman's eyes as he realises the things that anchored him are being swept away, and he cannot make a fuss because the wedding takes precedence, is touchingly real.
Last Chance Harvey skates close to being a clone of a Richard Curtis film then deftly extracts itself from every cliché.
As Harvey is being as miserable as a fish out of water, Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), who belongs in London, is just as miserable.
She has the opposite problem, too much family closeness.
Her mother, played by the wintry Eileen Atkins, has turned being a burden into a hobby and Kate is too soft-hearted to tell her to back off.
Kate works at the airport, where she encounters Harvey.
After a few missteps, they make a connection and spend a magical interlude together.
But can an interlude be transformed into real life? Slight but never trite, Last Chance Harvey charms as long as either star is in frame.
Best thing: Recently Dustin Hoffman has been hamming it up doing caricature characters, which is fun but here he surprises by being low-key and sweet.
Worst thing: This criticism is more of a testament to how well the story has been handled. At the end you feel short-changed because you want to know what happens next.
See it with: All those closet romantics out there.
