Harvey feels the slight, which feeds his well-known urge to drink a little too much, not that he needs fresh prodding. He's about to lose his job, and the wedding only forces him to think about the many ways in which his life has gone wrong.
Harvey looks into the dark night of his soul at an vacant airport bar (is there a better place for it?), and has a chance encounter with a London lonelyhearts (Emma Thompson).
They share a drink, lunch, an afternoon, an evening, and the movie builds around the familiar idea that this chance meeting just may be life-altering for both of them.
There's something naggingly familiar about the scenarios conjured up by writer-director Joel Hopkins. He borrows from brief encounters, affairs to remember and reworks a big scene from "About Schmidt."
But it's well done by the two leads, who register as real enough to rescue the movie at almost every turn from mawkishness and predictability.
Sure, you can make jokes - it's "Before Sunrise," but After Geritol.
Just don't make them in front of Eastwood. *
Produced by T*m Perell and N*cola Usborne, wr*tten and d*rected by Joel Hopk*ns, mus*c by D*ckon H*nchl*ffe, d*str*buted by Overture F*lms.
