The Last Kiss (L’Ultimo bacio)
I should clarify something: For the purposes of this site, an “old movie” is anything I didn’t see in its initial theatrical run. That includes this delightful 2001 offering from Italy, which was released theatrically in the U.S. in 2002 and which has been remade. Look out this fall for “The Last Kiss,” starring Zach Braff — I’ve seen the trailer twice now. That was my motivation for moving this to the top of my Netflix queue, coupled with the strong recommendation of a critic I respect deeply (and one I am happy to call a friend), Michael Sragow of the Baltimore Sun. If you can dig up his review, you should, because he writes about it more eloquently than I will here.
It’s a lovely and lively movie about life and relationships, in the vein (as Sragow pointed out) of Fellini’s “I Vitelloni” and Barry Levinson’s “Diner.” It zeroes in on a brief, fractious period in the lives of a group of friends, their lovers and their parents. It’s sort of a bonbon, with its lush Roman surroundings and endless parade of beautiful faces, and yet it finds humor and well-earned sentiment that ring true. It’s about guys who have trouble growing up and the women who, maybe, still love them. I love how the characters make the wrong choices as often as they make the right ones, and how the right choice isn’t always the conventional or popular one. I love how it shows the hero’s 18-year-old love interest as the idealized beauty that he sees and as the petulant brat that her mother sees. The movie, directed by Gabriele Muccino, has a wealth of multigenerational wisdom. It understands how heartbreak and uplift intersect and how lovers’ quarrels break out at inconvenient times and places. Muccino is no visual stylist, but his perpetually active camera penetrates the minds of characters who embrace chaos in order to stave off routine.
I hope Rachel Bilson is brave enough to go as broad as Martina Stella does as the love interest (she puts the thirtysomething guys’ immaturity in perspective). I hope Jacinda Barrett has the strength and fire of Giovanna Mezzogiorno. And I hope, against hope, that Zach Braff doesn’t lapse into glum self-importance. He seems to see himself as a standard-bearer for his generation. Stefano Accorsi, the lead in “L’Ultimo bacio,” clearly doesn’t carry that burden. He’s just a relaxed and elegant leading man, with a face you could stare at for hours. Mostly, I wish that this movie hadn’t been remade at all, because it would be hard to improve upon. I hope the ambition of director Tony Goldwyn and screenwriter Paul Haggis was merely to equal it. But I’ve seen nothing out of Haggis so far that suggests he’s capable.
Writing this motivated me to look up my interview with Braff, which is now included in the Links section (I haven’t learned yet how to link from here). I think I did a pretty good job hiding the fact that I didn’t like him or his stupid movie.