L’ULTIMO BACIO
Movie Review by S Felce
Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Sandrelli, Marco Cocci
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Life starts again when you are thirty. Or it stops. Or it turns back time and brings back your teenage years. In this Peter Pan’s syndrome story, Gabriele Muccino, both director and screenwriter, explores the life of four friends who, as they all reach their thirties, get scared about growing up. Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is scared about the fact that Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), his girlfriend of three years is pregnant because this means responsibilities and commitment. Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) is married and with a six month-old baby but he can’t accept married life. Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) is forced into his family’s business and Alberto (Marco Cocci) can’t solve his apathy. At a friend’s wedding Carlo meets Francesca, who is eighteen years old, and he starts seeing her. At the same time Adriano, Alberto and Paolo start planning to buy a camper and leave to go off on a long trip to Africa.
Being a thirty-something himself, Muccino’s portrait of his generation is true and realistic. Although it is a sympathetic representation, it also reflects the chaos of this generation. The thirty year-olds he talks about are afraid of growing up and becoming what their parents are. They don’t want to adapt themselves to the ordinary journey of life. THE LAST KISS becomes a tale of friendship, love, dreams and choices in which the most important thing is finding a place in life. It becomes like the taste of a last kiss, bitter and sweet, as a new life is coming and an old one is going away. You can either accept it or run away.
Muccino’s mix of love, humour and drama brings a new window to Italian youth and to a new generation of Italian filmmakers which has developed in Italy in the past few years and it’s now ready to conquer Europe. THE LAST KISS will charm old and new generations of Italian film lovers. Think of Fellini’s I VITELLONI with the speed of MTV music videos. Italian cinema has never looked so fresh and funky!
