Last Chance Harvey (2008): C-

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. Writer/director Joel Hopkins’ story begins dreadfully, clumsily crosscutting between lonely American divorcé Harvey (Dustin Hoffman) and lonely British statistics agency employee Kate (Emma Thompson) as they each suffer an identically uncomfortable, depressing night out in the company of people from whom they feel detached. Harvey’s in London to attend the wedding of estranged daughter Susan (Liane Balaban), which just reminds him of his failures and loneliness, while Kate is cell phone-hounded by her mother (Eileen Atkins), who thinks her Polish neighbor is a murderer (look, he’s carrying a body-shaped bag!) and who persistently frets over her daughter’s single status. When Harvey and Kate finally meet, their initial rapport has a tinge of nastiness that momentarily hints at spikier stuff to come. But no, Last Chance Harvey soon proves to be merely sentimental slop for the 50-and-older crowd that's made sporadically tolerable by Thompson's winning charm but, unfortunately, is largely dominated by Hoffman's grating, cloying performance. Hopkins feigns serious interest in the trickiness of later-in-life love while indulging in corny humor (a sequence that finds Kate trying on dresses is a sheer embarrassment) and even worse bathos, which – typified by Harvey’s attempts to reconcile with Susan over crimes of aloofness that are left ill-defined in order to keep him from seeming like an irredeemable cretin – relegates the action to rote drivel.