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Last Kiss
Directed by Tony Goldwyn
By Michelle Groene
This movie had the kiss of death written all over it for
me, even before I walked in the theater doors. The very fact
that Paul Haggis penned it should have kept me far away – unlike
many others, I found his previous projects Crash and Million
Dollar Baby to be grossly overrated and superficial. Combine
that with the fact that I lose a little bit of my sanity every
time someone calls Zach Braff a musical genius just because he
throws a little Snow Patrol and Imogen Heap onto a mix CD and passes
it off as a mind-blowing soundtrack…well, you can imagine
my surprise when I actually ended up kind of liking The Last
Kiss, despite all its melancholic bravado.
Based on the Italian film L’ultimo Bacio, in this
American version Braff plays Michael, a man nearing his 30th birthday. He’s
in a three-year loving and live-in relationship with the funny
and understanding Jenna (Jacinda Barrett, in a role so complex
you almost forget she made her debut on “The Real World”),
when they find out she’s pregnant. This sends Michael
spiraling into a self-proclaimed “crisis,” which he
will continue to verbally remind you of every 20 seconds for the
rest of the film. Surrounding him are a group of lifelong
friends who – in addition to adding a comedic element to
the film – have relationship problems far worse than his
own, but of course instead of turning to them for guidance and
support, Michael latches onto the first “cute little brunette” who
looks his way for no other reason than, well, because his life
is feeling a bit too planned out these days.
The brunette in this case is The O.C.’s
Rachel Bilson, a bubbly college student who spots Michael at a
friend’s wedding. It’s never fully explained
why she’s there in the first place, but it doesn’t
matter because, even though she proves herself capable of a career
on the big screen, shortly thereafter the script turns her into
little more than a stereotype of the needy/younger/other woman
character. Of course Jenna finds out about her, and after
confronting Michael about it, the last 30 minutes of the movie
turn into a raw display of emotion between these two main characters,
with Michael spending more time out in the rain looking for penance
than in any John Cusack movie ever made.
In press interviews for the film, Braff admits that the character
is extremely unlikable for the most part, which was a challenge
for him. Unfortunately, he never really rises to that challenge
and he comes off as merely an extension of the lithium-induced
character he played in Garden State. It’s
almost as if he doesn’t feel like his character’s problems
are that big of a deal, either, so how is the audience supposed
to buy it?
The rest of the cast more than makes up for his mediocrity,
however, and their storylines are much more powerful and interesting. Casey
Affleck plays Michael’s friend who is contemplating leaving
his overbearing wife and their young son; you can see his burden
in the blink of his sad eyes. His small storyline is only
trumped as far as meaningful screen time is concerned by the dissipating
relationship between Jenna’s parents, played by Blythe Danner
and Tom Wilkinson. Her outward cries for attention play beautifully
against his subtle nuances onscreen, and the two seasoned actors
are blessed with some of the best dialogue in the script. When
facing Michael for the first time after he strays from Jenna, her
father (Wilkinson) says, “What you feel only matters to you,” and
that it’s what you do to the people you love that really
matters. One only wishes Michael would have considered this
bit of wisdom before putting his relationship in jeopardy, but
hey, he was having a crisis, remember?
Under Tony Goldwyn’s direction, The Last Kiss looks
beautiful on the surface, in the rich Wisconsin landscape in which
the film’s set, but its characters are much more flawed by
comparison. To screenwriter Haggis’ credit, most of
the melodrama from Crash is (thankfully) absent here,
but unfortunately he leaves his trademark stereotypes intact, especially
in the female characters – eventually every one of them becomes
crazy or needy or controlling or some combination of the three. But
apparently Haggis doesn’t even realize he’s creating
these generalizations, as there’s actually a line in the
film where Blythe Danner’s character is encouraging Jenna
to live outside the black and white and to embrace life’s
gray area. If only Haggis would have employed this tactic
when conceptualizing his characters, The Last Kiss could
have lingered more lovingly on the audience’s lips.
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