Last Chance Harvey.

"Even when they're walking uneven shoulder to shoulder and hitting their professional marks note for note, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson don't make a lot of sense as a screen couple," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "But there's something irresistible about watching two people fall in love, even in contrived, sniffle- and sometimes gag-inducing films like Last Chance Harvey, which means that when he looks at her and she looks at him, there's a good chance that they won't be the only ones in the theater falling for all the hokey lines and shy glances."

"Can a heartwarming meet-cute as unambitious and overtly sentimental as Last Chance Harvey be simply too nice to get beat up on by anyone other than the coldest of bastards?" asks Aaron Hillis in the Voice. "Besides being old pros who could elevate such schmaltz in their sleep, Hoffman and Thompson - despite the 20-plus years between them, and her graceful restraint in contrast to his creepy assertiveness - have a genuinely sweet chemistry, which is the exact and only reason to seek this one out."

"Like any fairy tale, it assumes an audience who can identify with its characters, who can enjoy vicarious satisfaction when the unlikely comes true or when knots come magically untangled," writes Eric Hynes for indieWIRE. "But there's a gap between pleasing and pandering to an audience, and one needn't belong to that audience to smell the difference."

"Unbearably scored to within an inch of its bippity-boppity-booing life, the film follows Harvey, a commercial jingle impresario played by Dustin Hoffman, to London as he clumsily negotiates run-ins with friends and family on the eve of his estranged daughter's wedding," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "By film's end, Harvey is ready to live even as you're ready to die."

"It's mildly refreshing that Last Chance Harvey isn't tween-minded, but that doesn't mean this adult rom-com is smart, funny or moving," sighs Nick Schager

David Goldman in the L Magazine: "Sure, there are picturesque shots of London, and Hoffman and Thompson try to bring this story to life, but despite a few touching moments there's little for them to work with - no witty banter, no memorable supporting characters, and a script so lackluster director/screenwriter Joel Hopkins (Jump Tomorrow) couldn't even come up with a decent father-daughter confrontation."

"This is the 38-year-old Hopkins's second movie, and the themes that began in his first, 2001's Jump Tomorrow, flow through it, although guided by a far more confident hand," writes Betsy Sharkey, the new film critic for the Los Angeles Times. "Jump caught Thompson's eye and the two talked - a conversation that led Hopkins to write the role of Kate for the actress. There were hints of what a teaming of Thompson and Hoffman might look like in 2006's Stranger Than Fiction. Within a few short scenes, they anchored each other, creating a balance, an organic rightness, that made you hunger for more. It is a promise largely realized in Last Chance Harvey. And while there are some false notes along the way, when Kate asks, 'Shall we walk?,' follow Harvey's lead and say yes."

"If there's one reason to sit through Harvey when it turns up on cable (or on that trans-Atlantic flight), it's the always-watchable Thompson, who somehow makes us believe that someone who walks, talks and looks like Emma Thompson could be starved for male companionship," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC.

"In these times of institutionalized bad manners onscreen and off, it is refreshing to see a movie smoothly returning to an age of courtesy and courtliness leavened by wit and genuine sincerity," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer.

Rachel Abramowitz talks with Hoffman for the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by dwhudson at December 26, 2008 9:33 AM