Imagine that you fly to England to attend your daughter’s wedding, only to learn that she wants her stepfather to give her away. You work in the cutthroat commercial music industry: your jingles help attract viewers to such short advertisements. After the service, you must skip the reception and race back to Heathrow, but your taxi is slowed by traffic, and you miss your flight. You phone your boss, promise to catch the next plane out. With luck, you can still attend the meeting with the client. Instead, your boss tells you not to bother. This is a young man’s game, and you’ve lost too many projects lately. He’s sorry, but your services are no longer required.
In the movie “Last Chance Harvey,” the title character’s intention to drink away his sorrows in the airport bar is interrupted by Kate, who is reading a novel. Somehow, everything she says cuts right to the truth of his situation. When she asks if writing advertising jingles fulfills him, or if he once dreamed of doing something greater with his talent, he is not angered, but intrigued. At a loose end, he walks her to her creative writing class.
On the Victoria Embankment, even surrounded by so many people, their interest in each other never flags. After her class, Harvey is still there. The people who walk past, and the ships that power along the River Thames, seem symbolic of the opportunities that slipped away. Kate never found a successful life-partner. Although she was pregnant once, she opted not to have the child, and has since wondered what she missed out on. Harvey doesn’t understand how his marriage, his role as a parent, and his dreams of becoming a jazz pianist went awry. Despite how his daughter treated him, Kate urges Harvey to return to the reception, and he agrees, if she will accompany him.
In finding another person with whom they seem able to share such intense thoughts and feelings, Harvey and Kate realize that they might just have one last shot at the lives they always dreamed of living. But this is difficult and scary. Harvey must confront his failure as a husband and father if he is to move on. Kate recognizes that she has grown used to disappointment; she has found a disturbing comfort in failure. Harvey’s interest in her threatens to strip away her comfort zone.
Isn’t that the way of life? Just when we get comfortable with a situation, life offers up a change. Although we may not be fulfilled, we don’t want to work to adjust to something new. Yet we never reach a point where we are not forced to work if we wish to better our situation, and both characters recognize that their past willingness to accept life’s disappointments has brought them to this low ebb. Harvey doesn’t know where he will live or what kind of job he can get in England. Yet he knows that Kate represents his last real chance at happiness. She allows him to take her arm. The two walk off together along the Victoria Embankment. While they face an uncertain future, their steps are propelled by hope.
In committing to travel to England this year, we faced challenges that stripped away numerous comfort zones. Research into where to stay, what we wanted to see, how we would get around…the list was endless, and the additional demands cut into all aspects of our lives. Who would think that preparations for a two-week vacation could so dominate our thoughts or cut so deeply into our free time for the six months leading up to our flight? Yet we had put off this trip for decades, and knew that if we did not make it now, we might never visit this country whose stories have entertained and inspired us. After such a short time in London, we were tired from all our walking, but we knew our sacrifices had been worthwhile. We did not know what opportunities or trials the next hours or days would bring, but hand-in-hand, we walked along the Victoria Embankment, our footsteps propelled by hope.
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