Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999)
Director: Peter Hewitt
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
It's 1977, and when dopey young legal clerk Vince Smith (Legge) isn't clock watching, he's making eyes at fellow desk jockey Joanna (Fraser), comely daughter of the local university's super-don (Fry). Back home, dad (Courtenay) is an ineffectual couch potato, resigned to the philandering of his wife (Lulu) and the contempt of his eldest son (Rhys). Whereupon Vince spies a strangely familiar punk girl out and about, and Pa Smith modestly reveals to the family his long hidden psychic powers. Given his delightful film of The Borrowers, it's no pleasure to report that director Hewitt has come a cropper with this desperately uneven comedy. To be fair, Ben Steiner's lumpen attempt at a feelgood screenplay must shoulder some blame. After a neat, if predictable, opening pastiche of Saturday Night Fever, the film abandons everything but the most facile notion of its punk/disco period setting.Author: MHi
Cast & crew
Director: Peter Hewitt
Producer: Ruth Jackson
Cast: Tom Courtenay, Michael Legge, Laura Fraser, Stephen Fry, Charlotte Roberts, Amanda Root, Lulu, David Thewlis, Matthew Rhys, Rosemary Leach full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 96 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now