I spent most of this movie feeling a subdued kind of sadness for the characters, and I can't remember another movie sustaining that feeling like this one did. This movie is about two socially awkward people who could use some real companionship, and the way they go about finding it (which is to say, without the normal clichés) is pretty endearing.
Right when you think that it's Emma Thompson's cue to say something or act in a certain expected way, she says and does something different, yet realistic. Dustin Hoffman does a great job of managing to come across a man who recognizably does not quite fit into his own family because of his propensity to say and do things that don't lend themselves to smooth charisma but yet is likable in his own way and somehow likable to Emma Thompson, too.
One might worry about the logistics all of this, and certainly the scene where Dustin Hoffman's character rushed to the piano to stop Emma Thompson's character from the leaving the wedding reception was a bit too cheesy (and like nails on a chalkboard for me in an otherwise very subtle and delightful move). But in the end, these characters, for all of their destined predictability and occasional lapses into formulaic tedium, had very human faults that resonated... just like the movie itself.
Right when you think that it's Emma Thompson's cue to say something or act in a certain expected way, she says and does something different, yet realistic. Dustin Hoffman does a great job of managing to come across a man who recognizably does not quite fit into his own family because of his propensity to say and do things that don't lend themselves to smooth charisma but yet is likable in his own way and somehow likable to Emma Thompson, too.
One might worry about the logistics all of this, and certainly the scene where Dustin Hoffman's character rushed to the piano to stop Emma Thompson's character from the leaving the wedding reception was a bit too cheesy (and like nails on a chalkboard for me in an otherwise very subtle and delightful move). But in the end, these characters, for all of their destined predictability and occasional lapses into formulaic tedium, had very human faults that resonated... just like the movie itself.