‘The Last Kiss’

This film contains enough dude-I-can’t believe-you-did-that actions and funny lines to appeal to young men who hate the thought of becoming adults.

By: Elise Nakhnikian
   There’s an extended sequence at the end of The Last Kiss when Michael (Zach Braff) camps out on his own porch for days. Waiting for his girlfriend, Jenna (the stellar Jacinda Barrett), to cool down enough to talk to him, he’s in the throes of a premature midlife crisis, desperate to save a relationship that he may have irreparably ruptured.
   I know all that because it’s spelled out in the script — and a good thing, too. Because if I’d had to figure out what Michael was thinking just by watching Braff as he slumped on that porch, I’d never have come up with "spiritual crisis." "Bovine," maybe, even "catatonic." Or possibly just "hung over."
   I know Braff has his groupies, but his puffy lips, vacant gaze and tendency toward mouth-breathing make him look to me like a somewhat hipper version of Napoleon Dynamite. He seems like a pleasant fellow — he certainly seems pleased enough with himself — and he’s likeable on Scrubs. But you don’t get the feeling that there’s a whole lot of water in his deep end, if you know what I mean. What’s worse, he radiates an impenetrable aura of smirky self-love that makes it hard to buy that his characters need anyone else.
   Just as it strained belief that Garden State’s dazzling Natalie Portman would swoon for Braff’s dazed and confused protagonist, it’s hard to fathom why The Last Kiss’ lovely and thoughtful Jenna — not to mention the flirtatious young beauty he sleeps with (she’s played by The OC’s Rachel Bilson, who looks like a female Adrian Grenier) — would fall so hard for this callow narcissist.
   Michael is about 30, at the age where he and his friends are either embracing, flirting with, or fleeing from the m-word. He’s one of the fleers, though Jenna is 10 weeks pregnant and, as everyone agrees, "perfect." ("She’s beautiful; she’s like a guy," says Michael’s friend Chris approvingly.)
   Michael thinks Jenna’s perfect, too; he’s just not sure he’s ready to settle down yet. So when a cute college student cocks her head at him at a friend’s wedding, he lets her lead him into temptation — until he goes too far and realizes that he wants his old life after all.
   If Michael’s story is thinly developed, it looks positively plus-sized compared to the sparse subplots encircling it like so much parsley on a butter plate. Screenwriter Paul Haggis, who adapted the screenplay from an Italian movie of the same name, keeps shifting between Michael and Jenna and four other romantic crises. There are the friends: Chris (Casey Affleck, in a nicely modulated performance), who wants to leave his relentlessly critical wife without abandoning their baby; Izzy (Michael Weston), still pining for an ex who wants nothing to do with him; and Kenny (Eric Christian Olsen), a buff party boy ducking commitment in a world full of would-be housewives masquerading as superfreaks. Then there are Jenna’s parents: a chilly, cerebral therapist (played by the woefully underutilized Tom Wilkinson, who can’t fight his way through the thick ice of the cliché he is playing) and his emotionally neglected wife, who makes up for the emotion her husband represses and then some (played by a lovely but painfully overacting Blythe Danner).
   The movie flits from one minimally developed scenario to the next, drawing facile parallels between them (sometimes everyone is trying to connect; sometimes they’re all trying to break up) in an attempt to make it look as if they add up to more than they do. No one character or relationship is developed far. Instead, we get a series of scenes, some just a sliver of a slice of a moment, that illustrate some point the filmmakers want to make.
   But if the broad strokes are too broad, the detail work is often nicely done. These people don’t meet particularly cute, and when they fight, things get messy or turn violent fast. Though it may be damn- ing with faint praise to say so, The Last Kiss is much more realistic about how couples really act than most Hollywood movies, and it probably contains enough dude-I-can’t-believe-you-did-that actions and wryly funny lines to appeal to young men who hate the thought of becoming adults.
   If you loved Crash and Million Dollar Baby, you may be surprised that the same screenwriter wrote this one. I’m not, since I thought the story of Crash was thoroughly contrived and sensationalized. What was good about that movie came from Haggis’ directing, since he must have fanned the blazing intensity with which his gifted cast performed. As for Million Dollar Baby, let’s face it: We’ve seen a hundred variations on that theme, which could easily have degenerated into formulaic bathos if it hadn’t been directed by the elegantly minimalist Clint Eastwood.
   With a more expressive actor in the lead and more distinctive visuals, The Last Kiss might have worked pretty well, too. And with a director who’s skilled at bringing out the best in his cast, it might have worked even better, transcending its facile script.
   You’d think The Last Kiss’ Tony Goldwyn, who has considerably more acting than directing credits, would be that director, but apparently you’d be wrong.
Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language.