THE LAST KISS

MICHAEL PENN

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As Heard in the Film review by Clark Douglas: Watching "The Last Kiss", one gets a desire to start slapping the main characters around a little bit. It's okay, this is the desired effect. Unfortunately, as the film nears it's conclusion, one begins to feel like giving the same treatment to director Tony Goldwyn ("A Walk on the Moon") and award-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis ("Crash", "Million Dollar Baby"). A remake of the Italian film "L' Ultimo Bacio", "The Last Kiss" examines the lives of young men nearing 30 who fear responsibility. It's a "rite of passage" movie about a bunch of guys who should've been learning these lessons years ago. While this has the potential to be a painfully insightful drama (and it certainly has it's moments), everything ultimately falls flat.

The film's central character is Michael, played by "Scrubs" star Zach Braff with an earnest dose of whining. Michael is leading a fairly nice life... he's got a nice job, he's engaged to a lovely girl named Jenna (Jacinda Barret), who is pregnant with Michael's child. Michael feels he should be relatively happy with this setup, but suddenly he starts fearing that his life will be a pleasant, predictable routine from here on out, with no more surprises. So when an eager brunette named Kim (Rachel Bilson) starts hitting on him, Michael isn't exactly quick to tell her he's got a pregnant fiancée. If this sounds a bit like an early midlife crisis, that's exactly what it is, and several of Michael's friends are going through the same things. Of particular note is the predicament of Chris (Casey Affleck), who thought having a child with his wife would help strengthen his weak marriage. Instead, it's only caused more conflict, and Chris finds himself unable to deal with it.

Michael fears marriage, perhaps because in this day and age of modern romance, he can't find very many long-lasting ones. When he asks his fiancée to name him three married couples she knows that have lasted more than five years, she can only name her parents (Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner) and the ducks at the pond. To make matters worse, it turns out that even Jenna's parents are having a marriage crisis. It's a bit difficult to feel sorry for Braff's "poor me" character, as he winces and moans while trying to decide between the perky, shallow Kim and the sturdy, loving Jenna. However, the role works as an interesting character study, even if Michael makes a lousy protagonist. (Small Spoiler Warning) Of course, in the end, Michael will choose Jenna (though not before tasting of the pleasures Kim has to offer), because it's the right thing to do... and this is where the movie starts to struggle. It becomes a soggy soap opera about Michael's knight-in-shining-armor attempt to win back the love of his life, climaxing with a very prolonged, supremely gloopy and irritating scene of Michael laying on her porch for days, pining after her with backing from the soundtrack's equally achy-breaky pop songs. It's a Lifetime channel chick-flick finish to a mostly engaging and thoughtful movie. The movie makes the crucial mistake of stopping the character analysis and hoping that we'll have built up enough good will towards the individuals allowed to permit them a syrupy third act. That's a hard feat for anyone not named Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan to perform, much less a commitment-challenged guy and his one-dimensional (at least in the third act) love interest.

The movie is dominated by an eclectic array of indie pop tunes, some of which are interesting, some of which are (perhaps intentionally) annoying. Among the highlights are the Simon and Garfunkel-flavored "Pain Killer" from Turin Brakes, along with "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" from Rufus Wainwright and Fiona Apple's "Paper Bag". Of particular note to me was a musical number from my favorite female pop artist, Aimee Mann, who croons "Today's the Day" to good effect. Mann's husband (and Sean’s brother) Michael Penn provides the understated score, and it's a decent effort, dominated by melancholic piano solos. When more instruments are allowed to join the mix, the score bears a slight resemblance in style to the quirky and lilting scores of Jon Brion. There's not a whole lot of material on hand, because of the mass of songs throughout the film, but what's there is quite nice.

Ever since the remarkable "Million Dollar Baby", I have followed the career of Paul Haggis with great interest. He's got a lot of talent, some of which shines through here in his truthful dialogue. But he takes his first significant misstep with his storytelling in "The Last Kiss", shying away from making any bold moves and playing it safe to the point of nausea. There's a lot of good ideas in the film, but I can't help but feel it would be a better overall movie if it were either fluffier and more likable or more brutally honest. Tentative, partially successful filmmaking is often more frustrating than many bold failures. Still, perhaps worth a rental once it hits DVD, just for the dialogue and the lovely performances by Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner.

Track Listing: Lakeshore Records LKS-33869 (2006)

Running Time: ## minutes ## seconds

Music composed and arranged by Michael Penn. Edited by Lise Richardson and Shie Rozow. Score produced by Michael Penn.

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