lastkiss

Movie stars today are not memorable people. They lack personality. Scripts today are not
memorable. They lack originality. I don’t go to movies to see stars. I go for story. When the story
isn’t there and there aren’t any charismatic stars, then that’s a double whammy.

Welcome to “The Last Kiss.”

Zach Braff plays Michael, a generally confused and boring human who has knocked up his long-
time girlfriend and is now feeling obligated to marry her. There’s nothing wrong with his woman and
she genuinely loves him. So, of course in the grand Hollywood fashion, Michael goes off to find
solace in the arms of a 21-year-old college girl for an unmotivated one-night stand.

Yeah, this guy’s a genius.

Meanwhile, his friends are all having problems of their own. Casey Affleck wants to leave his wife
because she’s verbally abusive, but he has a child. Oops. Another guy can’t get over his ex-
girlfriend, so he wants to buy a Winnebago and skip town. All the while, Michael is descending into
adultery and the audience rolls their eyes.

Why is adultery and infidelity treated with such reverence in movies? Why is it such a pretentious
and meaningful topic? Mainly because people in Hollywood can’t keep their pants on, so in a kind
of creative guilt mode, they constantly justify their own behavior by subjecting us to these odes to
idiocy.

There’s no sympathy lost on Michael, we don’t know enough about his future wife to care about her
and the movie sets it up to try and force the viewer to accept the idea that if he says he’s sorry
enough times, then naturally she should take him back. As the British say, “Bollocks!” This movie
is a joke and an insult to my intelligence.

Everybody else can go weep in their soup if they want to and lament their own bad relationship
choices, but I’m not wasting another minute on this one. There are no lessons to be learned here
because the main character’s actions defy motivation, logic and most levels of emotional illogic, too.