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LAST CHANCE HARVEY. Dir Joel Hopkins. 2009

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Loser Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) heads for London to attend his daughter’s marriage to a young man he’s never met. Estranged from his family, and close to being dropped from his jingle writing job, his isolation is flagged up by him being booked into a second rate hotel alone while the rest of the wedding party are all bonding in a rented house.

Singleton Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) works at Heathrow and gets set up for a wretched blind date by a work colleague which only reinforces her sense of separation.

Harvey flies into London and he and Kate miss each other twice. They meet only at the point when Harvey is sufficiently humiliated to feel the need to offload to a stranger and she’s it. Kate persuades Harvey to return to the evening wedding reception and he takes her along. Buoyed up by her presence, Harvey does the right thing at last, reclaims his dignity, the love of his daughter and some respect from his ex-wife.

Billed as a romantic comedy, there are comic moments but something fundamental is missing here. This pairing doesn’t work. London is filmed at its beautiful best, edging towards Autumn, as the pair walk along the South Bank, but to carry the audience into the illusion that Hoffman and Thompson could fall in love, some emotional manipulation would have helped suspend disbelief. Harvey’s wedding speech, however well judged, is not enough to make a strong, modern woman fall at his feet.

Good performances from both actors, and a particularly fine moment from Emma Thompson, excellent throughout, when she drops her reserve and displays her vulnerability and fear. Superbly done.

As Harvey is supposed to be a jazz pianist, and loves writing jingles, music could have been used to good effect to influence the mood of the piece, manipulate the audience, and carry us with the characters as they fall for each other. In one scene, instead of calling to her, Harvey plays the piano, captures her attention and softens a moment when her jaded resolution has reasserted itself and this works quite well. In another scene a lively band makes them laugh and move in response, changing the energy momentarily and, of course, there is dancing at the wedding. But weddings are soon eclipsed by real life and we need to be more certain that these two hit it off.
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