Last Chance Harvey English Romantic Movie 2009
Cast And Crew
Starring::Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Kathy Baker,
James Brolin, Eileen Atkins, Richard Schiff, Liane Balaban
Director:Joel Hopkins
Writer:Joel Hopkins
Studio:Overture Films
Genre:Drama, Romance
Run-time: 92 mins
Release Date:December 26th, 2009
Last Chance Harvey English Film Synopsis:
Set in London, this romantic comedy stars Dustin Hoffman as Harvey Shine, a divorced and haggard jingle-writer quickly aging out of his career and workaholic ways. With a warning from his boss... Set in London, this romantic comedy stars Dustin Hoffman as Harvey Shine, a divorced and haggard jingle-writer quickly aging out of his career and workaholic ways. With a warning from his boss (Richard Schiff) to not bother rushing back, Harvey goes to London, begrudgingly, for his daughter's wedding, fielding that work calls the whole time he's there. When Harvey greets his estranged daughter, Susie (Liane Balaban), it becomes clear just how far away he's grown from his family.
The film never spells out in exactly what ways Harvey was a bad father, but it is clear he missed the boat when Susie asks her stepfather (James Brolin) to give her away. As Harvey leaves his heartbreak at the ceremony for an emergency work call, he misses his flight and gets fired. While nursing a whiskey at the airport bar, Harvey bumps into Kate (Emma Thompson), an airport employee escaping her own bad day with a glass of wine and a book. Suddenly taken by Kate's British charm, a tipsy Harvey bombards her with tales of his trouble.This unlikely trading of sob stories leads to lunch, a walk around London, and a day of unexpected romance. Thompson is charming as Kate, a lonely middle-age woman struggling to deal with her mother's constant prying into her life. Despite not having had the best of luck in romance, Kate is an optimist at heart, and it's this spark for life that attracts Harvey and ultimately helps repair his image in his daughter's eyes. Never showy or too ambitious, Joel Hopkins's slow-paced romance twists old clichés to suit a more adult audience. While not groundbreaking in its plot, LAST CHANCE HARVEY is saved by great performances from the always-solid Hoffman and the incredibly charming Thompson, who makes an otherwise familiar story feel fresh
Hollywood Movie Review :
Even when they’re walking uneven shoulder to shoulder and hitting their professional marks note for note, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson don’t make a lot of sense as a screen couple. But there’s something irresistible about watching two people fall in love, even in contrived, sniffle- and sometimes gag-inducing films like “Last Chance Harvey,” which means that when he looks at her and she looks at him, there’s a good chance that they won’t be the only ones in the theater falling for all the hokey lines and shy glances.
It takes a while for those bashful looks to start darting around in this film, largely because the writer and director Joel Hopkins initially keeps his two main characters apart in order to milk their respective loneliness for maximum pathos. The story opens with Harvey Shine (Mr. Hoffman), a frustrated jazz pianist who writes jingles for a living, struggling to hold onto his gig while en route to his daughter’s wedding in London.
By the time he has landed and breezed past an airline employee who is trying to snare deplaned passengers with a weary smile, a clipboard and a questionnaire, the movie has introduced the woman who will change his life: that conveniently situated clipboard wrangler, Kate (Ms. Thompson).
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