The Last Kiss

I'm just gonna jump right in, I'll post to a short plot overview so you can catch up on it if you haven't seen it, but I personally tend to get more out of movie reviews after I've seen a movie.
Be advised, this post will contain spoilers for this film, and possibly for other films if they are referenced.

The Last Kiss

Plot Overview - by way of allmovie.com
"A successful 30-year-old (Zach Braff) with a the perfect girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) and a lucrative outlook on life struggles with the increasing pressures of adulthood as he weighs the merits of settling down with the woman who loves him against risking it all to be with a comely co-ed (Rachel Bilson) in director Tony Goldwyn's remake of Gabriele Muccino's 2001 comedy drama. Crash and Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis adapts a script originally penned by Italian filmmaker Muccino, and Casey Affleck, Eric Christian Olsen, and Tom Wilkinson co-star."

Here is a movie that understands the cultural milieu of middle America today. The "Gen-X'ers" are growing into parenthood and adulthood and have no idea how it's done. There is this idea that "kids are growing up so fast these days." What this attitude doesn't take into account is while it may be true that kids are growing into adolescence quicker, many get stuck there. We are seeing the emergence of a generation of grown-up kids. We don't know how to start to make a life of our own. We rely on our parents more than our parents did, or our parent's parents did. They say the average player of video games is 33 and it goes up each year. We are "friends" with people from waaaaaay back, who we may or may not even know today, on various social networking sites just because they tie us to our youth. Are we afraid to leave our adolescence? Are we able to? Zach Braff's character embodies the sentiment of the song 'Stop This Train' by John Mayer in which he sings "So scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young." In high school all problems, no matter how minor or ultimately insignificant, seemed like major life decisions and issues. Every problem is a crisis. In high school you can take extreme actions to attempt to remedy these situations, even if they can be rectified without drastic actions. Unfortunately, no one tells you that, and when we grow toward adulthood we carry those same attitudes, thinking decisions made over problems that are probably not as grand as we think are ultimate and can potentially ruin our lives or be the one big decision that will make go everything right from there on out. We can't be afraid to make mistakes for fear that it'll be the end of the world. We can't run and hide and insulate ourselves from all things in life that make us sad, mad, unhappy or uncomfortable. This movie reminds us that this is life. It's like the story of the teen who told his dad he wished he could just skip all the bad times in his life, goes to sleep and wakes up an 80 year old man. By skipping the bad he's missed his entire life. This is not to say that life is all bad; but without the bad how could you appreciate the good. Happiness exists only as a function of the fact that it could not exist. The worse the bad times get, the better the good times will seem. In the end, when Casey Affleck's character tells his soon-to-be-ex-wife that he is not coming back, but he is going to stick around and be the father of his child and she accepts thaat, and Jenna allows Michael back into the house they are modeling their first step toward understanding and accepting adulthood. The two friends who jump in an RV to ditch their cares and responsibilities model the same old reactionary high school-level approach to life.

In this film, Zach Braff's Michael is punished for his misdeed(s) by being forced to sit on the porch for a day or 2, out in the rain for a while, with only a plain ham sandwich and a glass of sparkling water courtesy of the token gay, black neighbor (filling your minorities quota in one character cuts down on payroll, I guess). He is forced to sit there as a sign of his willingness to "do whatever it takes" to win Jenna back. Depending how you feel about his character at this point, the ending either works or doesn't. In the end she lets him back in, to the house, and to her heart, which is not the decision every one would make, but for her, in that situation, at that time in her life, with everything else that is going on, it strikes me as honest. There are those who have written that the film is not a strong enough condemnation of infidelity because, in the end, all is seemingly forgiven. I disagree, I don't think there should be any question that infidelity is condemned in the film. It just goes one step further, showing the depth of commitment these characters have for each other that they are willing to work through even this most heinous of relational offenses. Unconditional, I believe they call it.

One thing that does bug me in many of these trendy-indie type movies is the uber-hip indie soundtrack; the director/music supervisor saying to audience "ooh, look how obscure and high brow my taste in pop music is" Not that the music is bad, because it isn't, it's just that there is a sameness because they all seem to use similar artists and it's becoming as cliche as using Motown hits in romantic comedies and Hans Zimmer and his oft-overbearing 133-piece orchestral string super scores. (Although I love Motown and what Zimmer did on Lion King) But now I'm nitpicking, and I hate nitpicky reviews. So I'll conclude with a ringing endorsement and a suggestion to go see it.