admin @ Fri, 2006-09-15 11:00
Hollywood realizes that today's twentysomethings don't remember "thirtysomething." Every generation has to rediscover how difficult love and relationships and marriage and child-rearing can be. We're aren't born knowing the answer to novelist Tom Robbins' "ultimate" question, "how to make love stay."
Thus, "The Last Kiss," a dark comedy about temptation, responsibility, growing up and owning up -- about the way the accelerating pace of life might push the "midlife crisis" up to 30, from the mid-40s.
It's about weak men who can't make up their minds and commit, or if they have committed, to let that commitment stand. And it's about fierce, assertive women who toy with the boys like they were puzzles they mastered in high school.
Zach Braff of TV's "Scrubs" (and the movie "Garden State") is Michael, a Madison, Wis., architect three years into a relationship with gorgeous grad student Jenna (Jacinda Barrett). He may gush "how lucky I am that you love me," but he can't finish that thought without staring at the hottie in the photo ad on the side of the bus behind her.
Jenna has just discovered she's pregnant. So there it is, the rest of their lives, chiseled in stone for him on the eve of his 30th birthday. Yay.
His pal Chris (Casey Affleck) is feeling beaten down by a nagging wife and crying baby. Michael sees that, and annoying Izzy (Michael Weston, who seems to want Bobcat Goldthwait's voice) transformed into an utter wreck by the woman who dumped him.
Will Michael marry Jenna? Will Jenna win him over by solving his riddle, "Name three couples that you know that have lasted five years?" She has only her parents to point to (Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson). And they're not as solid as she thinks.
Oscar-winner Paul Haggis ("Crash") wrote the script, adapted from an Italian film of the same title, and his dialogue and the terrific cast make up for an unfocused, shallow and yet somehow heartfelt exploration of love and commitment.
Actor-turned-director Tony Goldwyn keeps the picture right on the edge of sad, even as he finds any excuse he can (lesbian strippers at a bachelor party) to show naked women and hot, hot sex. The script loses track of characters, back-stories and storyline, and tosses up a hoary "road trip" as a cure for what ails the hemmed-in male. It's almost an imitation of Braff's directing debut, "Garden State," slicked up, grown up and paper thin. Like that movie, it tries to coast by on a melancholy tone and witty performances.
As absurd as it is for a 29-year-old to tell the 20-year-old coming on to him how "old" she makes him feel, it's only half as silly as it is for him to hear her say "I may be your last chance for happiness." But Braff lets us buy into the confusion, the lust, the gravity of the consequences that Michael expects to rain on him at any moment.
He and the women of "The Last Kiss" give it weight, heart and smarts. They're all interesting enough to make us wish that they, especially Braff, did more movies. And deeper ones.
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