I recommend seeing this one sometime; it was a very good film. The performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are reason enough to see this. But, it has a touching and sediment ally sweet storyline to follow along with. Perhaps this is a bitter sweet comedy type of a film which would best describe it. London native Joel Hopkins directed and also worked on the screenplay for this, he has only a few other films under his belt so far which include Jorge (1998) and Jump Tomorrow (2001). I think he captured something relatively unique with Last Chance Harvey and it turned out to be a gem of a film.
These two characters Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) and Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) are attracted to one another yet they both seem to have previously failed at relationships in the past. Harvey is a divorced man who happens to write jingles for television commercials by trade. He meets up with a single woman named Kate Walker who gathers information about passengers at airline terminals.
Together, there is a certain amount of chemistry between them; however their relationships with family and friends have seriously put a burden on their dating lives. You will have to watch this to see how things play out, but it has a lot of solid scenes between both of the leading characters and a good supporting cast to boot.
What was rather brilliant was seeing these two interact with one another, it takes special talent to pull off performances like this and this certainly added quite a bit to this film and bringing the story out making it a better film overall. Emma Thompson’s character seems to bring out the best in Harvey, and she reads him like a book it seems.
The main story is about Harvey going to London, England for his daughter’s wedding while trying to get away from his job. He has a lot of pressure on him. A much younger upcoming employee is closing in on him threatening to take his job away from him. His ex-wife has since remarried and he has lost touch with his daughter somewhere along the way of things in his life.
It helped to have some other talents in there which include veteran actress Eileen Atkins as Maggie Walker, Kathy Baker as Jean, Liane Balaban plays Susan, James Brolin plays Brian, Richard Schiff plays Marvin, Tim Howar plays Johnnie, Wendy Mae Brown plays Aggie, Bronagh Gallagher plays Oonagh, Jeremy Sheffield plays Matt, Daniel Lapaine plays Scott, Patrick Baladi plays Simon, Adam James plays Josh Hillman, and Michael Landes plays Peter Turner.
Catch this film when you can, you won’t be disappointed at these fine performances wrapped inside of a fairly uniquely played out storyline. Two thumbs up for Harvey and his last chance.
Last Chance Harvey (2008) Review , 4.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating
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on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 11:16 am and is filed under Drama, Latest Reviews, Romance.
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