Review of The Last Kiss (2006) by Zak H — 07 Mar 2010

Last Kiss is at least not a typical romantic comedy. Its not a fairy tale love story that follows to hapless romantics as they bumble their ways through overly-story-convenient road blocks on their way to true love. Perhaps its the opposite; a story about overly-inconvenient circumstances screwing up the relationships of people who should (according to standard relationship expectations)be fairly happy.

The story does a decent job at presenting the downside of routine and casual acceptance of the default life plan. Be young, meet spouse, have kids, get old and die. Sounds depressing right? Well this movie makes it feel depressing too. It presents characters stuck in a "the grass is always greener" mentality, but stopped short of reminding us that the homeless kids from down the corner let their dogs sh!t on everyone's lawn regardless of what side of the fence the grass resides.

I agree with other reviews that say this is like watching people stick forks in a live electrical outlet because they never bothered to read the memo saying it was counter productive, but at the same time the general public isn't the most reliable when it comes to feats of common sense. Perhaps this movie is a good portrayal of that.

One thing I did like: The movie didn't jump both feet first into a happy ending, even if it did bust out the bathing suit.

One thing I really didn't like: During the dramatic wind down of the story they spoon fed the audience the idea that Rachel Bison was super immature/young by having her make Zack Braff a mixed CD. Why not just have her ride in on a skateboard wearing a sock monkey backpack. This annoyed me.