"The Last Kiss," directed by Tony Goldwyn ("American Gun"), is a film that sells as a cool, realistic look at friendship, love and the emotions in between.
Michael (Zach Braff, "Garden State") is about to turn 30 and is anticipating his birthday with a sense of anxious dread. He is in a relationship with a beautiful girl named Jenna (Jacinda Barret, "The Real World") who is having their baby.
The film also explores a number of subplots involving Michael's friends, but with all of them comes a cluttered amount of drama.
The main plot revolves around the regularity of Michael's current relationship and the new opportunities presented to him by Kim (Rachel Bilson, "Unbroken"). Unfortunately Bilson has the worst lines and the most uncomplicated role. Her personality is no deeper than a cardboard poster, and simply serves as a means to an end.
After attempting to avoid physical contact with Kim, Michael's situation pushes him to take the plunge and jeopardize his life with the woman he loves. While this is taking place, every other character faces some sort of dilemma of their own.
As in "Crash," Haggis uses his screenplay as a launch pad for multiple vignettes that eventually relate to one general theme. This method may have worked well in the Oscar-winning "Crash," but it suffers in "The Last Kiss." He fails to recognize that not every movie he makes can have a cookie-cutter format. "The Last Kiss" attempts to resonate a theme of the maturation of relationships, whereas "Crash" pertains to racial barriers. The variation of the content calls for a variation in screenplay.
Still, the film does maintain a surprising amount of staying power. One essential factor is a soundtrack that reigns superior to the film itself. As in "Garden State" Braff chose the film's music, and in both films the songs perfectly reflect the film's emotions and elevate them to an undeserved level.
This phenomenal soundtrack may cause some viewers to sympathize with the very unlikable protagonist, Michael. Although Braff plays the goofy, charming man-child with an undeniable authenticity, his actions of infidelity come off not as unavoidable or forgivable, but instead as cruel. This is possibly the result of poor acting by Braff, but a stronger argument could also be made to diminish Haggis's screenplay.
The film's subplots also include Stephen (Tom Wilkinson, "The Night of the White Pants") and Anna (Blythe Danner, "Meet The Fockers"). Jenna's parents are facing what may be the end of a 30-year marriage. Danner and Wilkinson steal the show by giving the two best performances in the film and making their respective bids for Oscar nominees.
Michael is not given enough time to illustrate the good that his girlfriend sees in him. If there weren't four different subplots, the main plot could have been given more attention. The film itself is just over an hour and a half. With its potential depth, the story could have easily used another twenty to thirty minutes without feeling overextended.
Despite the cluttered plot, viewers will leave with a lasting impression about both relationships and filmmaking. They're sometimes hard to get through, but at the end of the day, it's worth it.
