Forget about what I have to say: Let me defer instead to my lovely wife when describing her feelings after we screened the new Dustin Hoffman-Emma Thompson romance, "Last Chance Harvey," together.

"It's so nice and such of a relief to see good acting -- instead of these punks who are overpaid and don't know crap," she said.

Can you see why I love her? And Hoffman loves her, too.

"I'd like that to be the lead in every review of the film," said the screen legend with a warm laugh.

"Last Chance Harvey" is Hoffman's third trip to the big screen in the past year, following voice role turns in the hits "Kung Fu Panda" and "The Tale of Despereaux." But unlike his animated movie efforts, "Harvey" puts Hoffman in front of the camera again with a chance to show how he still has an incredible handle on acting fundamentals. Delivering emotional dialogue with subtlety and conviction, Hoffman stars as Harvey Shine, a down-on-his-luck jingle writer who flies from New York to London to attend his estranged daughter's (Liane Balaban) wedding.

Slideshow: The Films Of Dustin Hoffman

Hitting a new low after he encounters his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and her successful second husband (James Brolin), Harvey surprisingly finds another chance at love with Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) -- a lonely airport worker. Like Harvey, Kate is a person who has learned to live with life's disappointments and has doubts about the promise of their blooming romance.

In a recent @ The Movies interview, Hoffman said working with Thompson on "Harvey" was no fluke. The Oscar-winning pair looked for a movie to do together after sharing a couple of brief scenes in director Marc Forster's inventive comedy "Stranger Than Fiction," a 2006 film starring Will Ferrell.

"Marc's a friend, but he felt he had to cut half of the second scene Emma and I were in together because it took away from the main story," Hoffman recalled. "We were sad because we worked well together and literally said before we parted, 'We have to be in a whole movie together.' She then called me a year later and said she met ('Harvey' writer and director) Joel Hopkins, so the three of us got together."

Hoffman said that despite the few minutes he and Thompson had together in 'Stranger Than Fiction,' they shared plenty of their off-screen time together. In a way, he said, the opportunity they had to get to know each other during the making of "Fiction" in Chicago unknowingly laid the groundwork for their characters in "Last Chance Harvey."

"We evoked memories with each other and would up telling each other our life stories in a relaxed way while we were hanging out between scenes. Whether we were reading lines or walking the streets together. Because we weren't needed on the set every day, we got to know each other," Hoffman recalled. "So when the opportunity for 'Last Chance Harvey' came about, we just decided, 'Why don't we try to be just be that free, honest and relaxed as we were in Chicago?' We thought it was an interesting relationship."

Thankfully, the rapport Hoffman and Thompson developed during "Fiction" was allowed to unfold exactly the way they wanted it to because of a highly collaborative relationship with Hopkins. Better yet, the production was small and not beholden to Hollywood standards.

"It was filmed all on location in London with a low budget and no pressure. There were no demands and nobody coming to the set every day saying, 'This better be a hit,'" Hoffman said with a laugh.

'Chance' Of A Lifetime

While it's not a note-by-note account of his adult life, Hoffman, 71, said that "Last Chance Harvey" is somewhat an autobiographical film. For instance, Harvey is a resigned jingle musician who desired to be a jazz pianist, much in the same way Hoffman, who learned piano as a child, aspired to do the same growing up.

Other parts of "Last Chance Harvey" draw parallels to Hoffman's personal and professional lives, and in some cases both. But perhaps the most painful correlation of life imitating art -- and art imitating life -- was the sub-plot of Harvey's fractured relationship with his daughter caused by her parents' divorce when she was a child.

"There was a reality that was in 'Harvey' because I did myself have an unsuccessful marriage," Hoffman said, humbly. "In fact it I did get a divorce from my first marriage when I was making 'Kramer vs. Kramer.' It was an extraordinary experience going to work every day acting out what my ex-wife and I were living through because we had children together. We were painfully aware that the kids were suffering the most."

Hoffman said that the experience was so real that his daughter, Jenna, became friends with Justin Henry, who starred as young boy in the middle of the custody battle between Ted Kramer (Hoffman) and his ex, Joanna (Meryl Streep).

The actor said the reality of making "Kramer" during the crumbling of the marriage to his first wife (he's been married to his second wife, Lisa Gottsegen, since 1980) hit him like nothing before. "Last Chance Harvey," while ultimately an uplifting film, made him reflect on the pain of divorce once again.

"These big things in life -- they just alter you because when they happen, you're so totally unprepared because you don't think you'll ever be in that situation," said Hoffman, who had two children with his first wife and four with Gottsegen. "Whether you've read about it, you've seen movies about divorce and talked with so many people about so endlessly, when it happens to you, it's an entirely different experience -- particularly if there are kids involved."

"You feel that no one has ever expressed this in the way that I'm feeling it," Hoffman added. "So 'Kramer' has a lot of the emotionality of my divorce and 'Last Chance Harvey' is a reflection of it."

"Last Chance Harvey" is now playing in select theaters and opens nationwide on Friday.