The Last Kiss

I must warn anyone about to watch this movie: It is not the cute light movie the trailer or the cover make it out to be, nor is it adorable and funny like Zack Braff’s last movie. This movie is more of a drama than a coming of age comedy. In fact, there is more depressing screaming in this movie than there are in most movies not involving war or some sort of national tragedy. The fact of the matter is this movie is about what happens to people as they hit 30 and realize they have nothing left in life that excites them or surprises them. Braff is formidable as a leading man except he is such a snobby elitist that it makes it sometimes hard to feel sympathy for him. In fact, he really is the villain in this movie. Whereas Rachel Bilson, containing her “The OC” tendencies, comes off absolutely adorable and sympathetic as her character gets played by Braff.


There are other people in the movie but frankly they are nameless faceless characters for the screenwriter to make miserable. See, the item that most attracted me to this film was the fact that Paul Haggis wrote it. For you non movie dorks, Paul Haggis is the brilliant writer of Crash, Million dollar baby and the new Bond Movie. I was interested to see how he handled something less traumatic and after watching it, I found out it was actually a remake of 2001 Spanish film, so the idea wasn’t really his, but man does he put some pure venom in the words. There are a few arguments in this thing that just leap off the screen! I guess I could get around to discussing the plot. Braff has the perfect life- a gorgeous pregnant girlfriend, a great job and still has his best friends from childhood. I know, it sucks, right! Poor Poor, little Zach “My taste in music is better than yours” Braff. The girlfriend is played by former The Real World star, Jacinda Barrett and she has managed to turn herself into a fine actress. I mean she doesn’t get to do much but worry and second guess everything, but it works. Rachel Bilson plays the free spirited, temptress preying on Braff’s unhappiness but in the end she is the only character I actually felt bad for. The other plots involve Casey Affleck realizing he is miserable in his marriage, Eric Christian Olsen having semi graphic R-rated sex with some incredibly hot girl before realizing she wants a relationship and the dullest story involves Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner as a couple having been married for 30 something years and still trying to figure it out.


It isn’t easy to really like this movie except that I kind of did because of how real the writing felt and much of directing was well done. It is hard to sit through a movie when you kind of despise every character for one reason or another, but at the same time you can’t help but wish you had 4 friends you were that close to. Braff will probably amount to be a bigger star than he deserves, but because he walks around with this kind of cocky, goofy thing, I can forgive it. This movie was the first time I had seen him do much of anything other than smile and say something supercilious. I may be speaking in hyperbole but I haven’t seen enough of Scrubs to know if he does anything interesting on that show. Bilson looks incredibly hot even if she is playing a pretty typical college movie girl and she definitely would have had me choosing her!