Grace notes

God bless Emma Thompson and her glorious, gorgeous Botox-free face. Actually, bless all of her bits and pieces (especially the naughty ones). But it’s her face in “Last Chance Harvey” that reminds us what a rare and remarkable privilege it is to see our stars age gracefully – or for that matter at all. At 49, Emma is of course far from old; banish the thought. But in this age of baby-faced senior citizens and frozen-foreheaded fortysomethings, to see a woman embrace her age makes me smile almost uncontrollably – laugh lines be damned. As Emma told More magazine about our youth-obsessed culture:

“Well, I’m not fiddling about with myself, if that’s what you mean. We’re in this awful youth-driven thing now where everybody needs to look 30 at 60, and you go, ‘Don’t you get it? This is the law of diminishing returns. You are creating what can only be described as a great big cat-o’-nine-tails to flog yourself with as you get older.’ The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great, so that everyone looks forward to it.”

Well, she is certainly doing that. I’ve always harbored a not-so-secret crush on Emma. Her bawdy good humor, her unapologetic Cambridge smarts, her standing firm on the importance of eating dessert. In “Last Chance Harvey,” Emma’s Kate is achingly real: single at a certain age, guarded yet too world-weary to be anything but direct and with a mother who has her cellphone number on permanent speed dial. Still once Kate meets, or spars more accurately, in an airport bar with Dustin Hoffman’s Harvey, you know the poor fella is a goner. The film is simply charming – a romance for grown-ups in the best possible sense of the phrase. Love knows no season, lovely knows no age. Emma is proof positive that you can rage against the dying of the light without ravaging your face. When I grow up, I want to be older, wiser and just as wonderful as Emma. Now, bring on those laugh lines.