Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson learn that love can be found when you least expect it in LAST CHANCE HARVEY.Hoffman’s Harvey Shine heads to London for his daughter’s wedding and he’s slightly perturbed about the traveling inconvenience. Harvey is further inconvenienced by the hotel accommodations, rehearsal dinner seating arrangements and most importantly, his role in the wedding itself.
Upset and distraught he heads to the airport for a flight back to the states, but before he leaves London he meets Thompson’s Kate Walker, a surveyor at the airport. This causes Harvey to reconsider leaving England.
LAST CHANCE HARVEY is a wonderful companion piece to Richard Linklater’s romances BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET. Where Linklater explores a European one-day romance between twenty year-olds in BEFORE SUNRISE, and then as thirty year-olds in BEFORE SUNSET, writer-director Joel Hopkins reveals that this type of affair isn’t exclusive to generation “X”.Although the intensity of the romantic sparks between Harvey and Kate are not as intense as Linklater’s Jessie and Celine they’re no less important. Harvey is still dealing with the aftereffects of his divorce and the downturn of his music-writing career, while Kate hasn’t tasted must success in her love or professional life.
Romances, especially subtle ones like Harvey and Kate’s, don’t work without terrific performances. Hoffman and Thompson deliver pitch-perfect work, never escalating their character’s predicaments into melodrama, but also not downplaying them. The result is not only authentic, but also more relatable and effective than most big-screen romances.
LAST CHANCE HARVEY is an effective romance that celebrates love at any stage of the game.
Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment