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Shots in the Dark
Robin Williams is an obsessive photo clerk in One Hour Photo.
-Cindy Fuchs

Screen Picks

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Continuing

repertory film

August 29-September 4, 2002

movies

Do the Freak-Out

DEATH TO SMOOCH: <i>The Last Kiss</i> conflicted romantics gather for one last crisis.

DEATH TO SMOOCH: The Last Kiss’ conflicted romantics gather for one last crisis.

In The Last Kiss, you’re never the wrong age for a midlife crisis.

The Last Kiss

by Sam Adams

The Last KissWritten and directed by Gabriele Muccino A ThinkFilm release Opens Friday at Ritz Bourse

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“Everybody I know is in a crisis!” exclaims a character in Gabriele Muccino’s The Last Kiss (L’Ultimo Bacio), and based on what we see of his friends and family, the statement seems to be a pretty safe bet. Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is freaking out because he’s soon to turn 30, and his girlfriend is pregnant; Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) has a toddler of his own, and is chafing at the yoke of responsibility; even Carlo’s mother (Stefania Sandrelli) is at the end of her rope, stuck in a marriage whose inattentiveness is tantamount to cruelty. The subject, of course, is hardly new to the screen, but then, it’s hardly new to life, either.

Writer-director Gabriele Muccino interweaves their stories and more with high velocity, often using camera motion to connect the scenes, as if the camera were perpetually swooping around Rome, stopping in just long enough to observe each new development. Carlo is the movie's protagonist, but Muccino never puts too much weight on any one character, which ducks the narcissism that inevitably attends movies about any one character bucking adulthood. (Got that, Kevin Smith?) Sandrelli's presence does for the story much what Ellen Burstyn's did for Requiem for a Dream: provide a sense of perspective, a wider lens. Without Sandrelli's considerable presence, we'd be stuck with a movie about twentysomethings shucking off adult responsibilities, and not even responsibility-shucking twentysomethings want to watch that for too long.

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Muccino lets his characters make all kinds of mistakes, most notably when Carlo runs out and cheats on his wife with 17-year-old Francesca (Martina Stella). (Oh, those Italians.) And even then, when he's caught, he lies, unsuccessfully at first, then gets by with a half-truth. Adriano, meanwhile, is stricken with wanderlust, and considers joining his friends on a trip to Africa -- or, really, anywhere. They bungee-jump together, they stand on a hill overlooking the city and spray champagne into the air, yelling "Fuck you!" at the top of their lungs, but it's still not enough.

The Last Kiss empathizes with that desire to break free, even as it recognizes the many unwise ways in which it manifests itself. The film's title is never really explained, but it evokes passion and goodbyes, and the movie has plenty of both. How they fit together, overlap and contradict each other: That's the story.