Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on January 29, 2009 @ tonymacklin.net.

Last Chance Harvey is an easygoing trip abroad.

It features two relaxed pros playing acting tennis -- hitting graceful lobs to each other, and then artful returns.

The two acting aces are Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, who previously both appeared in Stranger than Fiction (2006) starring Will Ferrell.

This time they are the leads.

In Last Chance Harvey, set in London, Emma Thompson plays Kate Walker, who is stuck in a thankless job trying to interview tourists at the airport for Britain's Office of National Statistics. Kate lives with her intrusive mother and has no romantic prospects. Her life is wearily passive.

Also stuck in an unpromising existence is Harvey Shine (Hoffman), who is in London for the wedding of his daughter (Liane Balaban), with whom he has little relationship, since he is divorced from her mother (Kathy Baker) and hasn't kept in touch. Harvey also is in the process of losing his job writing advertising jingles in America.

Kate and Harvey meet in a bar and reluctantly she gets in a conversation with him. From there the chemistry of the two actors takes us and makes Old England Merry again.

It's difficult to imagine two actors getting more from these roles and simple plot than Thompson and Hoffman do. Joel Hopkins wrote and directed and stays out of his stars' way.

Their timing is terrific. Emma Thompson was a member of the comedy Footlight Players while at Cambrdge University. She did comedy with and had a romance at the time with Hugh Laurie (House).

Hoffman starred in The Graduate (1967) directed by comic master Mike Nichols.

Both Thompson and Hoffman learned witty delivery early.

In Last Chance Harvey, they have remembered it beautifully.