Taglines: We all make choices. What’s yours?
Michael and Jenna, having been a couple for three years, want to get married and start a family. These plans seem to be well on their way when Jenna announces that she’s pregnant. But Michael is worried that his life and his youth will be over for good. At a wedding of a friend, he meets a free-spirited college co-ed, Kim, who opens his eyes and leads him on a dangerous path away from Jenna. Meanwhile, none of the relationships of the people surrounding Michael and Jenna are happy and stable.
Michael’s friend Izzy is unwilling to let go of his childhood sweetheart Arianna; Kenny is a handsome stud who fears commitment to his latest conquest Danielle; and Chris is a co-worker who is dominated by his neurotic and overbearing wife over raising their newborn son. Even Jenna’s parents, Stephen and Anna, are experiencing problems in their long-suffering marriage.
“The Last Kiss” is a contemporary comedy-drama about life, love, infidelity, forgiveness, marriage, friendship… and coming to grips with turning 30. It is an adaptation of Gabriele Muccino’s acclaimed Italian film “L’Ultimo Baccio.”
The Last Kiss is a 2006 American romantic comedy-drama film which is based on the 2001 Italian film L’ultimo bacio, directed by Gabriele Muccino. The plot revolves around a young couple and their friends struggling with adulthood and issues of relationships and commitment. The film stars Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Casey Affleck and Rachel Bilson. The screenplay was written by Braff and Paul Haggis, and directed by Tony Goldwyn.
Much of The Last Kiss was filmed in and around Madison, Wisconsin. As with Garden State, Braff was involved with the film’s soundtrack. The first teaser trailer was released on Braff’s official website in mid-June 2006. The Last Kiss premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film grossed $11.6 million in the United States and Canada and $4.2 million in other markets (including $2,508,416 in the United Kingdom) for a combined worldwide theatrical gross of $15.9 million.
About the Production
For Zach Braff, star of the new film “The Last Kiss” from DreamWorks Pictures and Lakeshore Entertainment, the film seemed to be a natural progression from his role in his acclaimed film “Garden State.” “Whereas ‘Garden State’ was about being lost and confused in your mid-20s, this film is about being lost and confused as you turn 30,” says Braff. “The film is about turning a major corner in your life: settling down and starting a family, while still clutching on to everything that was free, innocent, and fun about being young.”
Tony Goldwyn, who explored similar themes in “A Walk on the Moon,” directs the film. “What we had the opportunity to do with ‘The Last Kiss’ was to make a comic drama about contemporary relationships that’s really funny, very sexy, and, most importantly, real,” enthuses Goldwyn.
“The screenplay takes a refreshing and rather edgy look at the ideals we have about what we imagine we want in our life partners, how we see our lives going, and what we expect to achieve at various stages of our lives. Somehow life never works out like ideal we envision. What do you do when life happens to you?”
“The Last Kiss” began life as the Italian film “L’Ultimo Bacio.” Nominated for 10 Davids (Italy’s Oscar), including Best Film, and winner of five, the film had a profound effect on Lakeshore Entertainment’s Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi.
“Two people told me about the Italian film in the same week – in fact, one was Jacinda Barrett, who would have a role in ‘The Last Kiss,” recalls Rosenberg. “I thought of it as a coming of age film. When I was a kid, people faced adulthood at 20 or 21, but these kids in the movie are 29 going on 30, which I think is the new coming of age; it seems there’s a bit of a prolonged adolescence today. ‘L’Ultimo Bacio’ dealt with a lot of issues young people face, but no one ever talks about, or they talk about in an idealized, silly way.” “I loved ‘L’Ultimo Bacio,’” says Lucchesi, “and unlike many foreign films it seemed to lend itself naturally to an American remake. I found the subject matter really fascinating and the content to have an American style to it.”
Once Lakeshore had acquired the rights to the Italian film, the next step was to develop the screenplay. “Paul Haggis was really the key,” adds Lucchesi. “We’d worked with Paul before on the Lakeshore film ‘Autumn in New York’ and we thought he’d be perfect for this material. We were right. He adapted the screenplay for us and really nailed it. Subsequently, through our relationship with Paul, we heard that he’d written this movie ‘Million Dollar Baby’ that couldn’t get financed. So we got involved with that picture and, of course, it was a big Academy Award-winner, including a Best Picture Oscar.”
“For ‘The Last Kiss,’ I was most interested in what our lead character, Michael, was going through,” explains Lucchesi. “That was something that I could relate to from a first hand point of view. Also, as a father of two daughters, I imagined what kind of scene would occur if a father had to encounter a future son-in-law who had cheated on his daughter. I thought that would be a very interesting and sort of remarkable encounter.
“I also loved the message,” continues Lucchesi. “Temptation is all around us; it’s how we deal with it and what lessons we’ve learned in the past that’s important. Quite often, we have to learn those lessons on our own. We can get advice from other people, but the advice they offer they’ve learned from the experiences that they have had.”
To direct the film, the producers turned to Tony Goldwyn, who had previously shown a light touch and sensitivity with similar themes in his 1999 movie, “A Walk on the Moon.” “Tony really responded to the screenplay,” recalls Rosenberg. “Gary and I thought he was the perfect choice for the material; when you meet him, he’s an intelligent, well-constructed, mature individual, and still an active actor, which is invaluable for an actor’s piece like ‘The Last Kiss.’ Each director comes with certain strengths – knowing how to direct films in a way that actors can appreciate is definitely a major strength for Tony.
“I loved ‘A Walk on the Moon,’ Tony’s first feature as a director,” enthuses Lucchesi. “I thought it was a magnificent movie, with terrific performances – it dealt with infidelity in a very kindly and elegant way. I think you could say the same thing about the Diane Lane character that you could about Michael, the Zach Braff character, in our film – her affair taught her something about herself and how to embrace her future with her husband. Tony had the tools that made him perfect for dealing with our story and characters.”
“When I directed ‘A Walk on the Moon,’ I had never directed before, and in fact, I never had any ambitions to direct,” says Goldwyn. “I thought I wanted to produce and I found that film, but couldn’t get a director that I thought was right. I ended up directing it just to get it made and then discovered, wow, this is the greatest job I ever had. Coming into the job an actor, I thought to myself, ‘What kind of atmosphere would I, as an actor, want on the set in order to do my best work? I tried to emulate that and that’s how I direct.
Coming onto ‘The Last Kiss,’ Goldwyn was impressed by the ways that Paul Haggis’s screenplay adaptation presented its flawed characters with compassion and humanity. “What I loved about the script is that there are so many different facets to it,” says Goldwyn. “The characters all have relationship issues, but we see them from both sides of the equation. That’s always something that’s really important to me in storytelling – that there are no good guys or bad guys. Rather, there’s a very balanced perspective, so both people in a relationship are right and both are flawed. The film doesn’t focus on just the male perspective or just the female perspective, but on the human perspective.”
“Although ‘The Last Kiss’ is a film about relationships, it’s also about friendship,” Goldwyn continues. “All of these guys are each other’s lifeline – they’ve known each other since nursery school. At this transitional point in lives, as they’re turning 30, and moving off into having other people be the primary person in each of their lives, they rely on each other as an anchor, as a refuge.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
The Last Kiss (2006)
Directed by: Tony Goldwyn
Starring: Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Casey Affleck, Michael Weston, Eric Christian Olsen, Rachel Bilson, Blythe Danner, Lauren Lee Smith, Marley Shelton
Screenplay by: Paul Haggis
Production Design by: Dan Leigh
Cinematography by: Tom Stern
Film Editing by: Lisa Zeno Churgin
Costume Design by: Odette Gadoury
Set Decoration by: Frédérique Bolté, Claude Leclair
Art Direction by: Gilles Aird
Music by: Michael Penn
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality, nudity and language.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: September 15, 2006
Visits: 125
