But what's good is very good. Hoffman plays Harvey, a failed jazz pianist who has found success writing jingles for TV ads. Thompson plays Kate, an airport interviewer for a British agency. Harvey flies to London to attend his daughter's wedding, and in the space of 24 hours he learns that he has been fired and that his daughter would prefer her stepfather gave her away. At the same time, Kate is ignored on a blind date and has to deal with a mother who fears her new neighbor is a vivisectionist.
They met briefly when Harvey was rude to Kate at the airport. The next day, when both are deep in misery, they find themselves the only two people in a pub. Harvey recognizes her, apologizes and, out of desperation, tries to start a conversation. She resists. But notice the tentative dialogue that slowly allows them to start talking easily. It's not forced. It depends on his charm and her kindness.
Pitch perfect. But then the dialogue fades down, and the camera pulls back and shows them talking and smiling freely, and the music gets happier, and there is a montage showing them walking about London with lots and lots of scenery in the frame. The movie indulges the Semi-OLI more than once; it uses the device as shorthand for scenes that should be fully transcribed. In "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," Richard Linklater sent Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy talking all through a night in Vienna and all through a day in Paris, and never let them stop, and kept his camera close. Why didn't Joel Hopkins, the writer-director of "Last Chance Harvey," try the same? He had the right actors.
Hopkins gets one thing right. They stay outdoors. Going to his hotel or her flat would set the stage for body language neither one is ready for. They avoid the issue by walking around London, although unfortunately Hopkins sends them mostly up and down the Victoria Embankment and the South Bank, so he can hold the Thames vista in the background. We get more montages of them walking and talking, as substitutes for listening to a conversation we've become invested in.
One subplot works well. After Kate starts Harvey talking about why his relationship with his daughter failed, she tells him he must attend her wedding reception. He says she must go with him. He will buy her a dress. There is a gratuitous and offensive montage of her trying on dresses, including one frilly gown that looks perfect for a fancy dress ball in "Gone With the Wind." Not only is this montage an exhausted cliche, they're in a hurry, remember? But when they get to the reception, Harvey is touching in a carefully worded speech.
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