The Last Kiss

Writer-director Gabriele Muccino's frantic, sexy comedy-drama comes as a refreshing change of pace at a time when most Italian imports depend on the sort of sappy schmaltz in which filmmakers like Roberto Benigni (The Monster) and Giuseppe Tornatore (Malena) have specialized. The Last Kiss instead has a good deal of the exuberance, passion, and vitality that marked Italian films of four or five decades ago. In the most general sense the picture is about the difficult process of maturation, focusing on four thirtysomething Roman guys, longtime friends, who are all Peter Pan types having trouble growing up and learning responsibility. One finds the demands of family life beyond him; another is frantic to win back a girlfriend; a third is a handsome lothario. The fourth is Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), who's about to be married but allows himself to fall into an affair with a much younger girl. If all this were played in sedate style, it would be as uninteresting as an ordinary soap opera; but Muccino stages it at fever pitch, using wonderfully fluid camerawork to give the film energy and panache. The result is a deliciously vibrant portrait of a group of essentially comic characters that, despite their foibles, remain grounded in reality in a film that is intimate in structure but operatically extravagant in tone. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)