Last Chance Harvey

By Nathan Rabin | December 31, 2008 | 3:45pm

Film Reviews Film

As
baby boomers reach retirement age, we're bound to see a sharp uptick in
romantic comedies about love amongst the AARP set. While it's always refreshing
to see pop culture acknowledge that life does not end at 30, these films share
a tendency to indulge in the kind of, "Aw, aren't old people adorable?"
condescension that marred the recent documentary hit Young@Heart. The middling romantic comedy-drama Last
Chance Harvey falls victim to
this and it doesn't help that the film is a vehicle for Dustin Hoffman, who
doesn't act in films these days so much twinkles. No matter how much abuse he
endures, Hoffman retains a mischievous gleam in his eyes that says everything
will be all right. Only Robin Williams can match Hoffman at his most
oppressively twee for elfin man-child annoyance.

Here
Hoffman plays a divorced jingle writer in the midst of a tardy mid-life crisis.
With his professional life falling apart, Hoffman travels to England for the
wedding of a daughter who makes it abundantly clear that she prefers rugged
stepfather James Brolin to her black sheep of a biological dad. Hoffman's
outsider status echoes the alienation of ennui-addled airport employee Emma
Thompson, who feels out of place both with her much-younger friends and her
much-older mother. After a few near-misses, these aging loners find each other
and begin a tentative romance, but the clock is ticking.

Thematically Last Chance Harvey suggests
both Rachel Getting Married and Before Sunrise. But unlike
those films, it doesn't earn its joy or its pain. The ubiquitous tinkling of
Dickon Hinchcliffe's manipulative score constantly telegraphs something
touching, dramatic, and a little bit sad transpiring; instead of letting
Hoffman and Thompson's chemistry-challenged romance play out in real time ala Before
Sunrise, writer-director Joel Hopkins lazily piles on
montages of his leads exchanging meaningful glances. If nothing else, Last
Chance Harvey proves that
you're never too old to be the subject of a zany trying-on-dresses montage, but
considering the prestige of its leads, that's a minor victory at best.

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