Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Last Chance Harvey is like a bad Jello-shot; all the right ingredients are present and accounted for, and they’ve been assembled in just the right quantities. But for some inexplicable reason, be it the room temperature or the wobble of the earth or Mercury being in retrograde…it just doesn’t gel. No matter how perfect every element is, it just never comes together. And what’s left is syrupy, thin and entirely uninteresting. I wanted to like this film, really I did. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson last appeared together in the magical Stranger than Fiction, and I really looked forward to seeing that chemistry work once again. But it just doesn’t.
There’s nothing that this film specifically does wrong either. Examined piece by piece, each element seems to be in fine working order. Hoffman is as likable as always, perfectly playing the competent, but unknowingly buffoonish father figure who is just plain down on his luck. Emma Thompson is perfectly nailing the aging spinster who has worked very hard to convince herself that everything is just fine and that she simply doesn’t deserve to be happy. Then the two are surrounded by a bevy of fantastic character actors and let loose to fall in love in what can almost be likened to Before Sunrise for the August to December crowd.
But it just doesn’t work. It’s never bad. It’s never unlikable. It just never clicks.
I LOVE romantic comedies. I eat ‘em up with a spoon. I especially love finely crafted ones with unusual leads or bizarre situations. But a rom/com needs to either make you want to fall in love or make you thankful for the love you have, and if you can’t make a softie like me even the slightest bit warm and fuzzy (when that is clearly your goal) you’re doing something wrong.
The film is about Harvey, a musician getting on in years who was never good enough to make it – only good enough to make jingles for floor wax. When his daughter decides to get married in London, he takes off for the weekend only to be forced to confront his ex-wife who is now living happier than ever with her new husband, who oddly enough has become the father to Harvey’s daughter that she felt she never had. A chance encounter puts him in an airport coffee shop with Emma Thompson. And the rom/com commences. Trouble is, it’s just so bleak for most of it – and the circumstances far from happy or remotely magical – that it never feels like these characters are getting a “happy ever after.” They’re getting the one person who bothered to pay any attention to them.
It’s a happy-go-lucky film that almost revels a bit too much in the banal cheerlessness of reality. And while I do enjoy films that are grounded in the real world, there are just certain things that should stay magical. Love, in the form of this kind of film, should stay romantic. If you get to clinical about the truths of life, you kind of miss the point and lose the audience. Which is what happens here. It’s a sweet film with its heart in the right place – but it never makes you want to hold the person you’re with a little tighter. Nor does it have anything profound to say – the only excuse one could have for taking this formula and trying to do something different with it.
Altogether, when all is said and done, Last Chance Harvey is a mostly forgettable film with a few cute moments and a cast far better than the ground being covered. And while that cast seems to elevate the material, they never do so to a level that accomplishes the goals that this film seemingly sets out to reach. Like a familiar song played with all the right notes, you can almost tell the person playing it is just going through the motions, and that their heart is in something else. If you’re a fan of any of the cast involved, it’s worth checking out – but it’s nothing to rush out and see. It will eat up two hours of your life and entertain you well enough – but it’s probably not going to leave much of an impression upon you at all.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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