A rambling romance

Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson’s chemistry
carries the heartfelt Last Chance Harvey

POWER COUPLE: Hoffman and Thompson

by JOSH LOVEJOY

Last Chance Harvey’s Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) is down on his luck and a little bit of a jerk. He’s just lost his job—that he doesn’t even like that much—and after arriving in London for his daughter’s (Montreal resident Liane Balaban) wedding, he realizes that he won’t be giving her away, having been replaced by the step-dad (James Brolin). Harvey meets Kate (Emma Thompson) who is also miserable, because of a depressed domineering mother, and the two spend the day together.

Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are not just superb actors, they are master eyebrow actors, and this for me is part of the great chemistry between them. They can both furl and scrunch their brows, Hoffman does a great one-eyebrow-raiser, and Thompson specializes in the open-your-eyes-super-wide-so-that-your-eyebrows-almost-pop-off-the-top-of your-head. All joking aside, both of these actors play well off each other and we get a sense of their loneliness and the sympathy they feel for each other.

Although this is a romance (think of a Before Sunrise for 50-year-olds set in London), the love story we’re talking about is not the fall-head-over-heels-and-kiss-passionately-in-the-rain kind of story. This film describes the type of love where two people can feel comfortable enough around each other to talk about their failures and their neurotic foibles, and by the end, hey why not take a chance at being together.

As you can probably guess, this isn’t my type of movie, but these giants of acting create real-life heartfelt characters whom you might see falling in love, ever so tenderly, next to you on the bus. It’s good to see Hoffman in a real leading role, seeing as he seems nowadays to prefer doing voices for cartoon animals like Kung-Fu Panda, and who could forget his role as a race horse zebra in Racing Stripes?

I also have to mention Liane Balaban. Although her screen time is brief, the scenes between her and Hoffman are truly touching.

LAST CHANCE HARVEY OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, JAN. 16