The Last Kiss

Winner of an audience award from Sundance 2003 together with 5 Italian ‘Oscars’ (like the UK Baftas) including Best Director, The Last Kiss is an involving and engrossing story set in Rome about a group of working young Italians and the lives they lead. Its lead character, is an attractive young man who has just entered his 30’s. Carlo (Accorsi) has a good job, a nice girlfriend Guilia (Mezzogiorno) who has just become pregnant and it looks like he’s going to happily settle down. He though doesn’t want to take on commitment, he doesn’t want to give up his freedom as a single man that easily especially when friends of his are playing the field. From a chance meeting at a wedding party, he starts a dangerous affair with a young girl Francesca (Stella) barely out of her teens. We see Carlo’s friends, his best friend Adriano (Pasotti) who is in a rocky marriage with all the disturbances that come with a first child and we see Carlo’s mother-in-law looking for someone new and since after many years of marriage, her husband visibly shows he’s not interested anymore.

For those that liked Lantana, The Last Kiss is going to have magnetic appeal. All the characters are believable, writer-director Muccino has come up with a good story and shoots it ‘Altman-style’ with interweaving scenes, a concentration on group dialogue, and various storylines going on at once (its not difficult to follow). The way in which Carlo tries to balance his time between his long-term girlfriend and his affair is unfortunately frighteningly believable and you know from the start that this is a dangerous game he’s playing. The Last Kiss probably reflects on the fickle nature of love, how relationships can lose their buzz and how some are content to stick with the relationship they have, whilst others yearn for something more, regardless of the consequences. One can see perfectly why Muccino’s film was the second-highest grossing film in Italy last year, it’s a well-made destructive dissection of infidelity, uncomfortable but authoritative viewing and probably reflecting what is going on in reality in many relationships.

Matt Arnoldi