Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

...at first sigh. and not only. because it is the expected love story film. bitter, amusing, realistic, with few crumbs of fairy tale, fascinating for the lead actors, escaping from many cliches and using part of the most familiar from them, proposing a mature romance, a real rare virtue among the romantic films of the last decades, being more than a film with Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman , elegant, nostalgic, familiar and the right choice for middle age public. so, just perfect. sure, in a special sense.

I recorded to watch this film which I had remembered seeing some years ago and I found I enjoyed it even more this time round. I could 'freeze-frame' it at any moment and every time I stopped it both Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson remained perfectly in character in their facial aspect and gesture. A masterclass in film acting. Every time I freeze-froze a scene. Almost any moment in the film could have provided an excellent 'still'.This is in some respects a film about the cruelty of social embarrassment, as well as, of course, the romantic yearning of quiet, shy but genuinely good people who haven't yet had a fair shake in life. You might consider the story a trifle but it has a few deeper resonances, too, ably delivered by two outstanding actors. One wonders about the backstory. You sense, well, I sense, that Dustin Hoffman's Harvey Shine really tried to be a good husband and father but it was the women in his life who misused him, not the other way around. The way his daughter treats him initially at her wedding ceremony and reception is almost unforgivable unless he really hurt her and there is no suggestion in his character that he had. He seems a very gentle and caring guy who deserved far better from his women. You could call the story a trifle but these are two very attractive actors giving just the right spin of sympathy to their characters. You really feel for both of them. They put up stoically with being socially embarrassed by unfeeling others. It is the sensitive who suffer at the hands of the insensitive and often suffer quietly. Both convey that very well. It is good and right that they find each other in the end. I love schmaltz well put together and this is well put together and London never looked lovelier. London is for lovers, too.

Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson do a fantastic job in bringing ordinary people like Kate Walker, aspiring writer and poll taker at Heathrow Airport; and Harvey Shine, a musical composer. Harvey travels to London, England for his daughter's wedding. His ex-wife and mother is played by Kathy Baker. James Brolin played the perfect stepfather. Harvey and Kate are both awkward at the gatherings where they don't feel connected to the people there. Even in Harvey's case, he is obviously uncomfortable being alone and single. He had lost his job because he failed to make it back to New York City and takes interest in Kate sitting and reading a book nearby. Dustin and Emma are great and believable together as a couple. The supporting cast also includes Dame Eileen Atkins who played Kate's suspicious mother, Maggie, who thinks her Polish neighbor is keeping secrets in the shed. Still, Dustin and Emma have a mature chemistry where their characters connect in a more disconnecting world. It's an enjoyable feel good movie to watch repeatedly.

"Last Chance Harvey" is, to me, a chance to see two great actors at work. That's it. That's all. It's an exhibition game, a free-skate, and it's a movie to be simply enjoyed, not analyzed.The great Dustin Hoffman here plays a middle-aged man, estranged from his ex-wife and adult daughter, estranged from his boss and industry, estranged from life. The enemy in this movie- though never explicitly stated- is mortality. The threat of death is what motivates Harvey to start a relationship with British spinster Kate, played by Emma Thompson. The movie does nicely parallel the true pattern of the aging baby-boomer generation... while only thirty years ago the thought of dating and marrying at age forty, fifty, sixty and beyond was unthinkable today it is commonplace. They are a generation that has never made peace with their own mortality and their solution is to become eternal teenagers.But back to the movie: the joy here is watching Hoffman and Thompson court and spark, enjoying themselves at a wedding and falling in love as they get to know one another. Dustin is so great an actor I could watch him read the phone book, and as usual he never hits a false note. Emma Thompson is good too, walking the fine line between tragic and pathetic, and it's great watching Kate awaken as Harvey spends his time on her.Okay, the plot doesn't offer much. Harvey's interactions with his ex and daughter put me in a coma, and his heart attack seemed contrived and anticlimactic. After all, just because he missed his park date with Kate doesn't mean he'll never see her again- he knows where she works for God's sake! But as I said before, this movie is not about plot... it's about hope, the hope that it's never too late to change your life or to find true love. Isn't that a very fine idea for a movie?GRADE: B-