Commentary by director Joe Hopkins, actors Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, theatrical trailer, previews

It’s appropriate that Dustin Hoffman’s character is named Harvey in the film “Last Chance Harvey”; like the infamous six foot tall imaginary rabbit that hangs out with James Stewart in “Harvey”, this Harvey (Hoffman) seems almost invisible to everyone around him. He’s the average guy that you don’t really notice looking over your shoulder reading your newspaper at the airport lounge. He’s the guy to paraphrase Lyle Lovett from his song, “Here I Am”, you wouldn’t notice until he asks you not to turn the page because he’s not finished reading yet. Harvey’s looking at the end of his dead end job as a jingle writer. When he leaves New York to attend his daughter’s (Liane Balaban) wedding he’s given an ultimatum; he HAS to be back after the weekend on Monday for an important meeting with his boss and a client. If he doesn’t he’ll lose his job. Arriving at the rehearsal he’s devastated when he finds out his daughter has decided to have her stepfather (James Brolin) give her away. Struggling with his emotions he leaves the reception early so he can make his flight back to New York. Things don’t quite work out that way. When Harvey meets Kate (Emma Thompson) at the airport bar they compare their miseries—they find they are kindred spirits. They end up wandering all over London talking and discovering each other. ***

Hoffman and Thompson previously proved they have chemistry in their brief scenes in the excellent “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Last Chance Harvey” takes advantage of this chemistry letting it play out (for the most part but more about that later) letting these actors do what they do best. The main criticism I have of the film is that the director doesn’t let them do that enough. For example, the scene at the bar breaks away too soon and allows lets a secondary element—the music try to draw us into the scene; that’s a mistake because as nice as the score is, the scene is about the performance and characters NOT the swell of the music. It’s one of many examples of directorial or editorial blunders on the part of the production team that undermines the performance of “Last Chance Harvey” by binding the hands and feet of a fine film preventing it from becoming a truly outstanding one. ***

There are other scenes in the film where director Joel Hopkins fails to have enough confidence in his material (he wrote the script) and his actors (with supporting actors like Kathy Baker and James Brolin in addition to his terrific leads I'm a little surprised) to let scenes play out to their natural conclusion; it's as if Hopkins is afraid that the audience might become bored so he uses cinematic short hand undercutting the natural charm of the scenes he has scripted. Perhaps it was s suggestion from the production to make some of these changes either way, it short changes the film, the performers and the audience in the process. Nevertheless, "Last Chance Harvey" is a fine film that had potential to be so much more.

We get a good commentary that could have been great; Director Joel Hopkins and actress Emma Thompson appear together on the commentary which is intercut with comments recorded separately from Dustin Hoffman. Luckily, Thompson is a witty conversationalist dominating the conversation with pithy and intelligent comments on the film and performances. Hoffman’s comments are also quite good but imagine the synergy if they were in the room together. ***

“An Unconventional Love Story: The Making of ‘Last Chance Harvey’” is a solid enough featurette which benefits from the witty and intelligent insights of the leade actors but it, unfortunately, has a major spoiler so I’d watch this after the film. ***

We also get the original theatrical trailer but nothing else. I would have loved to see a featurette on a romance like Harvey’s drawn from real life or even a discussion of the inspiration for the tale. ---

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