One Last Kiss
Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 27
  3. Negative: 2 out of 27
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  1. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    Stops your heart and keeps your belly jiggling with laughter. It's an improbably sunny tragicomedy.
  2. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    100
    An Altman-influenced movie made without the master's acrid bitterness. The Last Kiss may come out of Italian opera and comedy, but in spirit it's Shakespearean -- objective, impassive, and at peace with a world in which men and women manage to be both ordinary and extraordinary. [5 August 2002, p.80]
    All this critic's reviews
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    A crowd-pleaser in the deepest sense, mixes heartbreak and happiness together until you don't even want to see them apart.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Rooney
    90
    Craftily combining elements that speak directly to three different generations, this accomplished ensemble piece is shaping up to be the surprise homegrown hit of the season.
  5. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    While Last Kiss may strike some as a calculated crowd-pleaser, it's cleverly calculated, perceptive and often quite funny -- and a bit darker than it may first appear.
  6. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    In the end, The Last Kiss holds less a cynical view of the matrimonial state than one of considered irony.
  7. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jules Verdone
    88
    More movies should be so funny and perceptive, with writing this sharp and acting this believable.
  8. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    80
    It's a frisky, funny roundelay starring Stefania Sandrelli, and it features enough shouting and arm-waving to power a windmill.
  9. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    80
    Think "Sex and the City" with men, only in Italian and with lots more hollering and hand gestures.
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    75
    Both a witty ode to and a poignant lament for the choices we make.
  11. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    75
    You get to know each person just well enough to compare them, allowing you to judge as you like; the film, nicely, refrains from moralizing.
  12. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Dan Fienberg
    70
    The air of self-imposed misery can dampen the film's humor, but Muccino never stays still long enough for the emotions to become leaden, and the strong cast carries the film to its striking, bittersweet conclusion.
  13. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    70
    Its portrait of the many ways we can complicate our romantic lives may have a few serious moments, but it's intended to go down easy, and that's what it does.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dave Kehr
    70
    Provides more than enough sentimental catharsis for a satisfying evening at the multiplex.
  15. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    70
    It's not Fellini, by any means, but it's lively. Never stops moving, even though it crashes into cliches along the way.
  16. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    63
    Walking a tightrope between high farce and emotional truth, writer-director Gabriele Muccino's breathlessly paced Italian comedy The Last Kiss manages to stay just this side of melodrama.
  17. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    63
    The vigorous, unsubtle acting provides consistent pleasure, once you stop expecting it to seem realistic.
  18. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    60
    Even the film's ironic ending is deftly handled, its cynicism is tempered by a certain rueful wisdom.
  19. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Merle Bertrand
    60
    Makes a good chick flick for guys who want to appear artsy by taking their date to a foreign language film. Just remember: front row...and don't forget the aspirin.
  20. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    60
    It's the usual struggle of growing up and growing old, but Muccino's twists are plucky and revealing when he's not suffocating us with heavy-handed mortality and pathos.
  21. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Hank Sartin
    60
    Almost frantically intercutting between the characters, the movie spends so much energy trying to charm us that when the emotional stakes are raised we're too exhausted to care.
  22. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    50
    The message behind all of this is difficult to nail down. Mars and Venus? Adults who haven't grown up? The last fling syndrome? Doing what you want instead of doing what you must?
  23. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Stephen Cole
    50
    Though credibly performed and photographed, it's hard to care about a film that proposes as epic tragedy the plight of a callow rich boy who is forced to choose between his beautiful, self-satisfied 22-year-old girlfriend and an equally beautiful, self-satisfied 18-year-old mistress.
  24. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    50
    It's in no way a stupid movie. The trouble is that there's only so much emotional energy you can expend on these assholes before you start wondering why you're paying attention to them at all.
  25. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    40
    The film's "never grow up" refrain plays like a broken record, until, in an abrupt (but not unexpected) turnaround at film's end, it fixes itself.
  26. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    30
    Through it all, Muccino piles on one shrill confrontation after another. At times, he seems headed for the melodramatic turf owned and operated by Pedro Almodóvar, but where the young Almodóvar would have deployed a prankish wit and the older Almodóvar scraped toward the humanity beneath.
  27. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    30
    The director knows how to apply textural gloss, but his portrait of sex-as-war is strictly sitcom.

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