DIRECTED BY Joel Hopkins
STARRING Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins
US 2008 93 mins.
Wait a second – how did this sneak in? How, in between Halloween II and The Final Destination and the other brutalisations now being inflicted on the public, did Last Chance Harvey make it past the shock-and-awe police?
It’s not a horror film, which is bad enough – but it’s not a fluffy rom-com either, though it’s ostensibly romantic and occasionally comic. It’s not even one of those cute ‘human’ comedies like Love Actually and the rest of the Richard Curtis stable. The best scene in Last Chance Harvey has Harvey (Dustin Hoffman) making a speech at his daughter’s wedding – but it’s not like the deaf brother’s wedding speech in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which touched on Profound Truths and ended with a feelgood zinger (“By the way, your fly’s undone”). Harvey makes no jokes, unveils no truths, doesn’t get his audience weeping into the champagne. The speech is moving (to us) because it’s so simple: all he really does is wish everyone well, then sit down – but because he doesn’t embarrass himself, and because he’s been through so much in the film up to that point, this simple act of grace is supremely eloquent. Like the film itself, it makes a virtue out of being minor.
In the same vein, we could say this is Hoffman’s best performance in years (which it is) because he does so little; writer-director Joel Hopkins has managed to tone him down, reining in the hammy streak that’s blighted recent movies from Meet the Fockers to Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Harvey’s the kind of role that brings out the maudlin self-pity in actors – an American in London, a would-be pianist reduced to doing jingles, an ex-husband and estranged dad forever in the shadow of the man who took his place (Harvey hits his low-point when his daughter says she’d prefer her stepfather to walk her down the aisle instead of him) – but Hoffman doesn’t take the bait, playing him mostly with the battered energy of a middle-aged hustler whose tricks no longer work. There’s a moment when he tells Kate (Emma Thompson) that he always wanted to be a jazz pianist, and she asks if he was good; he pauses, as if about to spin a yarn, then crisply replies “No. Not good enough” – and the crispness is the highest compliment he can pay her, as if to say he likes her too much to attempt his usual b.s.
Thompson, of course, can do no wrong. She can be miscast (as she was in last year’s Brideshead Revisited) but she’s never hammy. She can even do long speeches – the kind that often sound ‘actorly’ – because she comes across as so sensible, and delivers a great one towards the end of this movie, when Kate admits she’s become “more comfortable with being disappointed” in her life. That’s the problem with both these lonely people (the film is practically a two-hander): they’ve stopped trying.
“Somewhere along the way I just lost her,” says Harvey ruefully, thinking of his daughter, and admits it “just makes more sense” to see her with the stepfather. Kate is even more defeated: when she goes on a blind date with a younger man and he happens to run into some friends his own age, she barely even tries to keep up, just slips away – automatically assuming he’s happier with them – has a good cry and goes home.
Last Chance Harvey is easily the most grown-up film at the multiplex; you probably have to be over 40 (and preferably single) to appreciate its low-key pleasures. It does feel like a TV movie, and would certainly never have been made for the big screen if its two high-octane stars hadn’t signed on; there’s a twist near the end – involving Dustin in hospital and Emma sitting on a park bench – that’s a bit too close to rom-com artificiality for my taste, and the teasing structure of the first half-hour (where the couple keep having near-misses and too-brief encounters) is also rather twee. But there’s something very honest about it, despite the genteel airs and touristy views of the South Bank: it doesn’t try to hook you with contrivance, doesn’t try to make these people more exciting than they have to be. They are what they are, and that’s good enough.
The film’s second-greatest pleasure is the way the couple gradually reveal their lifetime of baggage. Kate had an abortion once, and sometimes wonders how the child she never had might’ve turned out (would he be smart? would he be funny?); she dreams of writing a book in a country cottage with a stream running beside it. Harvey plays her a piano piece, and quietly admits that he wrote it (how long ago? who knows?). But the film’s greatest pleasure is simply the stars, their mutual respect (even though Ms. Thompson is at least a head taller) and the way they play off each other. I don’t know who let Harvey in, but I’m glad they did.
THE FINAL DESTINATION (no stars)
DIRECTED BY David R. Ellis
STARRING Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano
US 2009 82 mins.
I remember my reaction to the first-ever Final Destination, nine years ago. It was a strange occasion, because I actually spent much of the day with a very dear friend whose mother had just died – and then off I went to the Zena Palace (this was pre-Cineplex) to watch this obscenely callous movie that treated Death as a kind of parlour-game, obviously aimed at those young enough to view their inevitable end as a blurry abstraction far in the future. Yet the film won me over. Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, the team responsible for some of the best X-Files episodes, it was plotted sharply and wittily – and ended with a black joke so perfect it had me chuckling to myself even as the credits rolled and I ventured back out into the real world, where Death was a lot less enjoyable.
There’s a similar joke at the end of The Final Destination, but it’s feeble verging on pathetic. (You can’t even call it a twist; it’s played as a twist, i.e. the characters sound surprised, but surely the audience won’t be.) It’s an indication of how far the franchise has fallen, and typical of a film that’s almost entirely devoid of ideas.
Simply put, this is a rip-off. Even the title is a rip-off, insofar as it’s actually ‘Final Destination 4’ but it sounds more impressive to go back to the original title plus a meaningless definite article (seriously, who are they kidding?). Even by the standards of such things, the characters are boring – a racist neo-Nazi, a vapid princess, an insensitive jock – and the young actors charisma-free. The opening disaster isn’t as chilling as it was in the first three FDs, though no gory detail is spared (sadism increases in inverse proportion to imagination; the exploding plane in the first film just took a couple of seconds). The plotting is perfunctory, going from one grisly death scene to another, and the death scenes (worst of all) are unimaginative. Negligent workmen are a prime cause of tragedy, ditto absent-minded nurses who forget to turn off the water – not to mention a swimming pool where the “Drain Pool” lever is right there in plain sight, where anyone can push it accidentally. A scene in a car-wash is promising, but (again) lacks ideas so it just seems drawn-out. To make up, the film ups the ante on gross-out violence, with details like a shot of a headless body twitching on the ground.
All this, of course, is for those who accept its (lack of) moral compass – and it’s not even mentioning the vile Message at the heart of it all, that danger is everywhere (“It pays to be safe,” as our hero puts it). That’s the poison being peddled by the Final Destinations, that the world is out to get you – part of the so-called Culture of Fear in the West, especially America, also including child abductions, terrorists and second-hand smoke. Often, the film features shots of things that don’t actually cause disaster – a ceiling fan, a can of petrol – but just look dangerous. The obvious response isn’t fear, it’s paranoia.
How can a film afford to be so empty, so sad, so uninspired? Because it has a secret weapon, namely 3-D – though Hollywood is sadly mistaken if it thinks audiences are going to keep paying money for its bottom-of-the-barrel horror pics just for a gimmick that lets them experience sharp objects to the face a bit more vividly. New ideas are needed, and fast. On the evidence of this film, Final Destination is dead in the water.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few months. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Prices quoted don’t include shipping. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
FINE, TOTALLY FINE: Quirky, absurdist Japanese comedy, as may be gauged from its starting premise: “Teruo, the eldest son of a bookshop owner, has a dream: to build the world’s scariest haunted house”. Extras include interviews with the two lead actors. [UK]
LOOKING FOR ERIC: Not very good, by all accounts, but who cares? It’s a feelgood comedy-drama starring the legendary Eric Cantona! Extras include a documentary called ‘United We Stand’ plus an ‘Extended Meditation Scene’! [UK]
OLD FILMS
MAN HUNT (1941): The market for classics on DVD is moribund in the US, so it’s good to see this one being released: one of Fritz Lang’s more light-hearted thrillers, starting off with an unexpected sight: Adolf Hitler in the crosshairs of a big-game hunter’s rifle. Extras include commentary, restoration comparison and more. [US]
THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973): Robert Mitchum on top form in one of the most underrated crime dramas of the 70s – wonderfully matter-of-fact and convincing. Deluxe edition from the Criterion Collection includes commentary by director Peter Yates. [US]
EL DORADO (1967) and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962): Two classic Westerns in new ‘Centennial Collection’ editions with loads of extras – mostly commentaries and featurettes – though there’s been a fuss in the world of DVD collectors over Liberty Valance which has been ‘cleaned up’ so much it looks unnaturally bright and silvery. Memo to studios: a little grain is a good thing with older movies. [US]
