Last Chance Harvey is one worth taking

February 19, 2024

This 2008 movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson is the sort of movie that is hardly made anymore. The movie pulled in a $32 million box office on a budget of $5 million (the source for that claim is a bit of trust me, bro, but it's the number that's floating around on the web), which in theory should have produced a decent profit.

I suspect the budget today would be much bigger and the box office prospect dimmer, and with little in way of DVD sales there's just not much of an economic base for a movie like Last Chance Harvey to be made.

Which is unfortunate, because it is a worthwhile diversion.

Hoffman plays Harvey Shine, an ageing man who finds himself increasingly squeezed out of his personal and professional lives. He's divorced, and his about-to-be-married daughter wants little to do with him. At work, he's overtaken by younger and hipper colleagues with a fresher take on the jingles that the agency he works for sells.

He's also a rather pathetic figure. He's socially awkward and needs a drink just to manage the flight from New York to London, where his daughter is getting married.

Thompson portrays Kate Walker, a middle-aged woman who never quite found her way into the life she had hoped for. She has a rather uninspiring job, her forays into the dating market are fruitless and even humiliating, and her mother is constantly checking in on her.

Harvey's misfortunes quickly come to a head while he's in London and that's when he bumps into Kate. Together, they start turning their lives around, but how far will they get?