Cinematical

Yes, Tony Goldwyn and Paul Haggis's The Last Kiss is about the 4000th remake of the past few years (listed just after The Lake House and Last Holiday, and just before The Longest Yard), but this one actually has a little something to say about the trend. Most remakes are based on the idea that juveniles buy the most tickets; since they're young, they theoretically don't know anything about older (or foreign) movies and hence we can sell them the same stories over and over again. The irony is that there are a bunch of grown men sitting in Hollywood boardrooms, paid to think like juveniles.

But The Last Kiss actually takes on juvenility as a subject. 31 year-old Zach Braff plays a character about his own age, an architect named Michael. Michael has dated Jenna (Jacinda Barrett) for years, and now she's pregnant, though they've never bothered to get married. Michael informs us that, although his life has gone as planned and he has no complaints, he has begun to feel trapped, as if there was no more excitement waiting for him.

Michael's lifelong pals are in much of the same boat. Chris (Casey Affleck) is married with a baby (that never seems to stop screaming). His wife Lisa (Lauren Lee Smith) never stops screaming at him, and he has taken to locking himself in the bathroom, desperately groping for a second's worth of peace and understanding. Izzy (Michael Weston) has just been dumped by his longtime girlfriend and can't quite come to terms with it. And, stud-muffin Kenny (Eric Christian Olsen) has just realized that his life of tending bar and sleeping with hot women isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Michael and friends attend a fifth friend's wedding, which causes them to seriously ruminate on their current life standings. Is there anything left to look forward to? Is this all there is? Have we wasted the best part of our lives? Chris, Izzy and Kenny begin tentatively talking about an exotic trip together, to find adventure and seek their true selves. But Michael finds a more immediate distraction: Kim (Rachel Bilson).

Out of the blue, Kim begins chatting up Michael at the wedding, even seeking him out while he's gone off to be alone. She's adorable, clearly young and her attentions do wonders for Michael's flagging confidence. She tells him where she goes to school and where to find her; he does just that and begins a simple, heartbreaking chain of events. Eventually, Michael must fight with all his being to regain entry into Jenna's heart.

The Last Kiss, of course, is based on a 2001 Italian film written and directed by Gabriele Muccino. The original is no masterpiece, but it's a tightly-constructed, organic melodrama and a serious emotional roller-coaster ride. The way it works is that the events leading to its hero's downfall click together in lockstep with the emotional flow. Whenever something is offered, it comes at exactly the wrong time, just when defenses are down.

In his screenplay, Paul Haggis -- who, it goes without saying, wrote and/or directed two Best Picture winners in a row (Million Dollar Baby and Crash) -- does justice to the original's construction. But it's something of a slavish, point-for-point adaptation. It does not take into account varying emotional temperatures affected by the climate and location. In the Italian version of The Last Kiss, tempers and appetites never stop raging. When a wife or a girlfriend shrieks at a male companion, it's honest and open; nothing is held back. But in the American Last Kiss, characters check their feelings and regularly withdraw their fears and desires. So when someone lashes out, it seems out of character, like a sudden leap from stoic to frantic.

For example, the hero in the Italian version, Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), is very attractive and approachable. When the young girl (Martina Stella) flirts with him, it makes sense. Now, Zach Braff is a charming fellow, but playing a sullen thirty-something sulking in the corner at a wedding, he hardly gives off vibes of lust. When Kim approaches him, we don't really know why she would bother.

Sadly, for a movie about growing up, the grownups fare the worst of all. Jenna's mom Anna (Blythe Danner) goes through her own little crisis, leaving her husband -- somber, intellectual Stephen (Tom Wilkinson) -- because, in his analytical way, he doesn't pay enough romantic attention to her. Wilkinson can't figure out how to humanize his psychiatrist character enough to prove her wrong, and Danner merely comes off as hysterical. (Harold Ramis, of all people, appears in one curious scene as someone Danner had a fling with years earlier.)

Only Bilson manages to capture something of the essence of the original film, sending out her raw, untested, unfettered sexuality like feelers, turning on a dime from sex goddess to a helpless little girl.

Director Goldwyn, who as an actor usually plays cowards, sleazeballs and scumbags (i.e. Ghost, The Last Samurai), is pretty good at directing this type of melodramatic soap opera (i.e. A Walk on the Moon), even if he usually fails to smooth the rough edges. But rough edges aside, The Last Kiss still has a lot to admire -- just the mere fact that it embraces the painful tragedy of growing up says a lot more than most movies, which would rather not even admit that the idea exists.