Last night I went to see a screening of Last Chance Harvey, a new film starring the ever-classy Emma Thompson as Kate and the inimitable Dustin Hoffman as Harvey in a mature romance about a Brit and American who meet and fall in love over one whirlwind weekend in London.

During the film, I found myself trying to count the number of other Hollywood movies that involve a man and a woman falling in love when they’re middle-aged. I don’t mean a second-love romance occurring after both have already been through their first loves, nor a film about late-life, sustained love, such as On Golden Pond, but a romance that portrays two people finding each other and love, as if for the first time, when they’ve already crossed the 40-year mark. In today’s society, it’s not unusual to see an independent, smart, and attractive 50-ish woman finding love for the first time–look at the New York Times Wedding section on any given weekend–but it is astounding to find it at your local movie theater.

The characters Thompson and Hoffman play are flawed. So used to the filmy, bubbly romantic comedies of our day, which elicit guffaws and chuckles and knowing smirks, I was surprised to find myself cringing at various moments: at Harvey standing to give an unexpected speech at his daughter’s wedding, at Harvey’s first attempts to hit on Kate at the airport bar, at Kate sitting and waiting for a Harvey that failed to show. At a certain point I realized I was cringing because of how close it felt to home. “Don’t hit on her!” I thought, because I’d seen men hit on women in the exact same way before, and sometimes failing to elicit such happy results. “Careful with your hope,” I mouthed, because who hasn’t been disappointed in love?

It’s refreshing to see such a film come out of Hollywood. While European movies often portray men and women who haven’t been airbrushed and readjusted to spectacular, non-human qualities, it’s rare to see this in a mainstream American movie. Thompson has a muffin top, Hoffman is wracked with wrinkles, yet they are (surprise!) still able to fall in love and stage a sweetly romantic kiss just like any other Hollywood star and starlet.

Thompson (God, how I adore her) wrote a blog post about the movie, which I think sums up better than anything the uniqueness of the movie, despite following a typical cute-meet-fall-in-love storyline, and the power of it, despite its quiet and contemplation:

If you see the picture, and I hope you will because I love it very much and am moved by it every time I see it, you’ll notice I am decidedly unglamorous and at least size 16. I really wanted to look like a “normal” woman, I mean in terms of body size.

Actresses seem to be getting tinier and tinier and I do wonder how we think we can present really powerful women, matriarchs and the like, when we seem to insist upon having such attenuated physiques.

So Kate is solid – probably worries a bit about her muffin-top (mine is more like a desk-top these days if you must know) but can’t find the energy to worry enough to go to the gym and can’t find the time either.

She’s a real sort of person, someone I could relate to entirely and I hope you enjoy her. If you do, tell your friends because the more we can get films like this well distributed the more films we can make about (for want of a better epithet) real women as opposed to (let’s face it) pretend ones.

The film opens up around the country this weekend. The trailer is available here: http://www.lastchanceharvey.com/.