Characters able to draw you into 'Last Chance Harvey'

His protagonist in “Last Chance Harvey” harks back to Dustin Hoffman’s first chance as a film actor.

In his transformational 1967 debut, as the title’s lonely loser in “The Graduate,” Hoffman portrayed a bumbling victim of circumstance with no direction and little respect — until love upends his world. More than 40 years later, his Harvey Shine is a bumbling victim of circumstance with no direction and little respect until love — in the form of Emma Thompson’s old maid character Kate — upends his world.