Review: Last Chance Harvey

Last Chance Harvey (2008)
starring: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Liane Balaban, Kathy Baker, James Brolin, Richard Schiff, Eileen Atkins
dir. Joel Hopkins

I can't say how disappointed I am in this film. The sheer fact that they bring together two very good actors to find love and stick it inside a hackneyed plot is nothing but inexcusable. Wait, let me take a brief step back. There are about 40 minutes of really nice work in this movie. The rest is a bunch of contrivances that are used simply to bring our main characters together, get them apart and bring them back together again.

To watch Hoffman and Thompson on screen is pretty magical. Filled with emotional resonance, two single older adults try to dodge and weave through the trappings of past relationships and life's disappointments to connect, seeing if something more is there. The honesty and humor that happens between them never skips a beat. The personal confessions that take place are artful. The possibility of the damn bursting is always there, but the pauses, the respect they allow for each others pain keeps it together and something emerges that is so mature that it is rarely seen in romance films ever.

It is the contrast of crappy plot devices that almost destroy everything these two giant talents bring. Writer/Director Hopkins, who did pen some very striking dialog, structures the film with almost every cliche in the book when it comes to the third act. Half-assed, half-witted, lazy turns that rip off so many romantic comedies I stopped watching and came back after I had cooled down. I kept thinking of Raul Julia's line in Tequlia Sunrise (1988), "How could you fuck it up? How could you make us look so bad?"

Despite these grievest of flaws, I still have to say that it's worth a watch. The high points far outweigh the low, but when the low points hit, it's like a black hole we can't escape.

7 out of 10