The Last Kiss

The Last Kiss (2006) is an american movie based on the italian L'Ultimo Bacio from 2001. I haven't seen the italian one so I don't know how the two movies are compared to each other. The director behind The Last Kiss has mostly done tv series in the past, but the screenwriting is by Paul Haggis - the acclaimed writer behind movies like Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima and In The Valley of Elah. The Last Kiss is centered around Michael and his girlfriend Jenna who are expecting a baby. Both are quite young, in their late 20s and the bigger story in The Last Kiss is about relationships. Not only are Michael and Jenna having problems, but so are their friends and Jenna's parents. I think the movie has a lot of potential and the directing is quite nice, nothing over the top. It's a quiet movie and the issues at hand are presented in a subtle way. The issues the character have to face are placed in the grey areas of life where things aren't certian or purely one thing or another which is good. However, I didn't feel the movie lived up to it's full potential. They have a great writer on board, the pictures were nice, most of the actors did a good job and the music was... nostalgic... Coldplay, Athlete and Turin Brakes to mention some... There are several stories in this movie and we never got to know all of them very good. The main focus was entirely on Michael and Jenna and a certain incident they had to resolve. I think the movie could have been richer had we been able to see more of the other stories as well, which may have tied together the overall theme a bit better. It's a relatively short movie, only 1 hour and 30 minutes so a little more meat to the film couldn't hurt. It's got a 6.7 on imdb which I think is a bit low and I would give it a 7.2.