Last Chance Harvey: Movie Review (2009)

Written and directed by Joel Hopkins, 92 minutes, rated PG-13.

Some movies you want to hang for their contrivances, others you’re able to overlook in spite of them. Joel Hopkins’ “Last Chance Harvey,” from his own script, is the latter.

With one exception--and it’s the exception that matters--there isn’t one element in this movie that hasn't been painstakingly manufactured, sometimes to the point of inducing nausea given the gross run of sentiment the script courts.

In lesser hands, you would gag on the forced elements of treacle “Harvey” bastes itself in, but here’s the exception: If you have a cast who can approach the material straight and balance it with real emotion, little miracles can happen onscreen that otherwise wouldn’t have happened at all.

“Harvey” is the story of two single adults of a certain age and from different continents who are on the cusp of resigning themselves to living out the rest of their lives without a significant other.

They are lonely individuals, and sometimes that loneliness is palpable. Since neither is getting younger and the prospects of finding a new love are wearing thin, they each have gone about the busy work it takes to fill up a life not shared with another. One person takes writing classes and endless phone calls from her mother (Eileen Atkins). The other writes compositions for the piano in his spare time.

That would be Harvey (Hoffman, at last putting himself fully into a role after too many of years of phoning it in), a musician whose first and only marriage ended in failure. Unfortunately, so did the career he mapped out for himself. Instead of becoming the great jazz pianist he wanted to be, life had other ideas in mind, and his musical career was reduced to writing jingles for television commercials.

As for Kate Walker, well, she has her neurotic mother to contend with while her co-workers work overtime to set her up on blind dates, none of which pan out. She’s a striking woman making her way through life the best way she can, which on a personal level isn’t very successfully.

And then fate strikes--and strikes, and strikes--when she meets Harvey, who arrives in London for his estranged daughter’s wedding. First, Harvey and Kate meet at the airport, where she works. Then they sort of meet much later when he’s getting out of a cab that she just happens to be entering from the other side. Finally, they meet for real at a bar and have a conversation about who had the worst day.

That would be Harvey, who just was fired from his job on the very day his daughter’s wealthy step-father (James Brolin) was chosen to walk her down the aisle. He also missed his flight back to New York, but as the conversation bubbles up between him and Kate, it quickly becomes clear that missing that flight might have been a blessing. Obviously, these two were made for each other.

So, yes, all of it is contrived--but it’s also charming, endearing and well-acted. Hoffman and Thompson have the sort of believable and necessary chemistry this sort of movie needs if it’s to succeed. Since they do, it does. “Last Chance Harvey” is slight and sweet, a date movie for adults who can brush aside the cliches in favor of watching two pros who make acting look unnaturally easy.

Grade: B

View the trailer here: